LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



VpfSSBlof 



Shelf „W&& 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



r: 



1M7 



POEMS 



CAMP AND HEARTH. 



BY 



J. HOWARD WERT, 

Author of " Gettysburg Monuments." 




HARRISBURG, PA.: 

HARBI6BURQ PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
1887. 






COPYRIGHT, 1887, 
BY 

J. HOWARD WERT. 



TO THE READER. 



MANY of the poems here, for the first time, com- 
piled, were originally published in various peri- 
odicals, from the year 1859 down to the present time. 
They appeared in the National Era, of Washington, 
D. C. ; Gettysburg Star and Sentinel ; Carlisle Herald • 
New York Waverly ; Waverly Magazine ; New York 
Mercury; Ballou's Monthly ; Flag of our Union ; Wel- 
come Guest; Wide World; Weekly Novelette; Har- 
risburg Telegraph; Pennsylvania College Monthly; 
Harrisburg Telegram ; and other periodical publica- 
tions. 

Some of these productions attained an ephemeral 
reputation and, in a few cases, were extensively copied, 
wandering far from their original home. 

In now collating some of the poems which have 
been so widely scattered and> generally, speedily for- 
gotten by the public, I am simply executing a long 
cherished wish. Naturally I feel a deeper interest in 
these fugitive children than any one else can be ex- 
pected to have. 

Many poems of the past w T ere on subjects of tem- 
porary interest which rendered them unsuited to a 
collection intended for general reading. I have there- 



4 Camp and Hearth. 

fore added to those earlier productions which have 
been here retained, a considerable number of poems 
which have not before appeared in print. Most of 
this latter class are on subjects that have been sug- 
gested by recent currents of thoughts and events. 

It would perhaps be well to say to the indulgent 
reader that, in the case of the author, poesy has sim- 
ply been a recreation and never an avocation. 

If one cannot be a master and produce grand sym- 
phonies, he may still, perchance, in a humble way, 
touch a minor key which will awaken responses in 
other hearts. 

Harrisburg, Pa., J. H. W. 

October 31, 1887. 



Camp and Hearth. 5 
CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Lays of the Great Rebellion : 

I. Zagonyi's Charge, 11 

II. Virginia's Hidden Voices, ...... 13 

III. Fallen at Fair Oaks, 15 

IV. By the Chickahominy River, 17 

V. The Wounded to the Dead, .19 

VI. Escaped from Millen, 20 

VII. Minnie Engle— July 4, 1864, 23 

VIII. Fredericksburg— Dec, 1862, 27 

IX. Our Fallen. Brave: Decoration Day, 1876, 28 

X. Blended Lives : Lincoln and Everett, . 36 

XL A Departed Comrade, 45 

XII. A Retrospect— Jan. 1, 1862, 46 

XIII. The Great Re-Union, 49 

Translation of "Dies Irae," 53 

The Doom of the Slaver; or, The Phantom Ship, 60 

Tribute to the Memory of David A. Buehler, . . 64 

Optimism, 65 

The Sunny Meads of Flora Dale— A Song, ... 67 

Class Song: 1879/ 69 

Charades : 

I. Summerfield, 70 

II. Patrick Henry, 71 

The Return of Hezekiah Given, 72 

A Fragment, 82 

The Angel of the Mind, 82 

Sit Lux, '. 84 



6 Gamp and Hearth. 

Page. 

Judea — A Sabbath Meditation, 85 

The Ideal Queen, , . 86 

'Neath the Walnut Tree, . . 87 

The Hearth-Side : 

I. Song of the Sailor's Bride, ....... 91 

II. An Autumn Pencilling, 92 

III. The Tracings of Memory, 93 

IV. The Realm of Thought, 93 

V. Speak Gently, . 94 

VI. Queen of All Hearts— A Health, .... 95 

VII. A Portraiture, . ' 96 

Heart Throbs : 

I. The Suicide, 99 

II. The Stranger's Grave, . 100 

III. The Pirate's Death, . 101 

IV. The Deserted, 102 

V. The Sleigh Ride, 103 

VI. The Maiden's Complaint, 104 

VII. The Orphan Boy's Lament, 105 

VIII. The Warning, .' 107 

IX. In Front. of Petersburg, . 108 

X. The Mountain Home, 110 

XL Meade, Seward, Greeley, : 110 

XII. Infelix, . . .' Ill 

The Indian Warrior's Last Song, 113 

The King of the Tritons, . . 115 

The Storm King, 115 

From Tyrant to Tyrant, 116 

Legends of Gettysburg : 

I. " Under the Oaks of Rock Creek," ... 121 



Camp and Heaeth. 7 

Page. 

II. Brown's Battery B, 123 

III. The Excelsior Brigade, 125 

IV. The Pennsylvania Reserves at Round Top, 128 

" We shall be Happy Then," 131 

" Highland Mary," * 132 

The Gospel, 135 

Crete— 1867, 136 

Garibaldi— 1867, . 136 

To " Neh," 137 

The Floating Soul, 138 

Loved and Lost, : 143 

Lullaby of the Falls, 144 

The Wife's Reply, . .: 150 

Contest of Ages, . 151 

New Year's Soliloquy, . 152 

Baltimore, . 153 

A Wreath of Wishes Twined for Maine, of G , 154 

Mary Gwendolen Caldwell, 156 

A Home Picture, 158 

Resurgemus, 160 

Dollie Harris, of Greencastle, 161 

A Memory, 164 

Faces we Meet, 165 

Over the Breakers, 167 

To S. C. K., of Newburyport, Mass., 167 

Encouragement, 168 

Two Letters from Saratoga, 169 

At the Pines, 171 

A Mental Panorama, 17o 

The Last Grand Army Man, 176 



LAYS OF THE GREAT REBELLION. 



To the Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, 
Department of Pennsylvania; and especially to my com- 
rades of Post 58, the following Lays of the Great Rebel- 
lion are respectfully inscribed by 

The Author. 



I. ZAGONYI'S CHARGE. 



When, in 1861, Major-General John Charles Fremont was given 
command of the troops operating in the Department of Missouri, a 
small body of cavalry was organized into a body-guard, the command 
of which was given to a Polish refugee named Zagonyi. With this 
handful of men he made a reckless charge through the streets of 
Springfield, Mo., occupied by two thousand Confederate troops, in- 
flicting great loss upon them. Zagonyi also lost heavily, but by 
daring fighting the majority escaped from what appeared inevitable 
destruction. This was one of the most brilliant feats of that dark 
year of reverses — 1861 — and did much to inspirit the loyalists,, 
mourning over the disasters of Bull Run, Vienna, Big Bethel, Wil- 
son's Creek, Ball's Bluff, and other unfortunate engagements. 

" Now follow me where victory leads : 

Charge : on for Fremont — on for man. 

Press to the field where Freedom bleeds, 

And o'er Missouri's fertile meads 

Charge home, as fast as e'er ye can ; 
Charge ! urge along our shattered van, 
Until, beneath the setting sun, 
Rings out the shout for victory won, 
Through camp and bower." 

Such were the words Zagonyi spoke, 

The noblest of heroic race, 
Amidst the dusky film of smoke 
Dense wreathed around — a battle-cloak. 
The rattling fire leaped in his face : 
He asked no truce — desired no grace, 
But swept with stern and awful pace 
His men to their baptismal place 
Of lurid fire. 



12 Camp and Hearth. 

"Charge, forward, charge upon the foe: 

On, guards ; for Freedom — Fremont, on. 

The hosts in gray are crouching low ; 

Two thousand men await the blow; 
But on our sabre points shall run 
The life-blood of each valiant one, 
Before yon smoke-enveloped sun 
Shall see Zagonyi's guards outdone 
By mortal power. 

" With one wild impulse charge the foe. 
The rifle's crack, the musket's roar 

Affright us not. The sabre's blow, 

In battle's ebb and battle's flow, 
Decides fore'er the field of war. 
The vultures, that above us soar, 
Shall not our comrades batten o'er, 
Unmixed with floods of foeman's gore — 
Zagonyi's dower." 

The field is swept like winnowed chaff 

Before the mighty whirlwind's reign : 
Unspoken sorrow checks the laugh 
Of maidens, who the cup shall quaff 
Of sorrow for a lover slain. 
Alas ! they know that woe and pain, 
Like lightning's fierce and fiery chain, 
Fell from Zagonyi's blue-girt train, 
In that one hour. 



Camp and Hearth. 13 



II. VIRGINIA'S HIDDEN VOICES. 



The Approach to the Dismal Swamp.* 



Our bark is bounding o'er the wave, 
With free and steady motion ; 

Our boatman chants, in rolling stave, 
A symphony with ocean. 

Dark lies the low and swamp-lined coast 

Beyond the rolling billow ; 
In lurid form, flit ghoul and ghost, 

Beneath the bending willow. 

The phosphorescent gleam, that mocks 

The chase of man or ocean, 
Gives forth no light, but sternly locks 

Those spectres from our vision. 



Our boat has anchored safe and clear, 
Within those dim recesses ; 

Our gondolier, with a thrilling cheer, 
Bids welcome home's caresses. 

But still that phantasy doth dwell 
On brow, and heart, and brain ; 

I know it well — but none may tell, 
Whence that heart-fettering chain. 



14 Camp and Hearth. 

That rivets to this dismal post 
Those gazing down the distance, 

Where ghoul and ghost, along the coast, 
Are armed for stern resistance. 



Our footsteps press the clammy ground, 
Funereal shadow's flit around ; 
And denser still, that fearful thrill, 
That omen of foreboding ill. 

Beyond yon dark and sullen river, 
Where joyous sunbeams dance and quiver; 
Virginia's fair, exempt from care, 
Inhale the sweet and balmy air. 

But here beneath the clinging vine, 
Where leaves of cypress darkly twine, 
I hear a note of vengeance float — 
The echo of some human throat. 



Ah ! well I know that wild refrain 
From dusky lips out-bursting — 

The moan of pain, none may restrain — 
The voice for Freedom thirsting. 

Perchance the rebel seated high, 
With pride and power surrounded ; 

As it cleaves the sky, will hear that cry 
For liberty unbounded. 



Camp and Hearth. 15 

Forever live the laws of Right, 

And God, their maker wields them ; 

And in their sight, fall power and might, 
For justice guards and shields them. 

Gettysburg, Jan. 30, 1862. 

*The unhealthy morasses and swampy fastnesses of the Dismal 
Swamp, inaccessible in many cases even for the blood- hounds, were 
for many years a favorite hiding place for slaves in southern Vir- 
ginia, who became fugitives from the oppressions of brutal masters 
and overseers. Some died here from want and exposure rather 
than leave the swamp, and thus face the punishment awaiting them. 



III. FALLEN AT FAIR OAKS. 



To the memory of Orderly Sergeant Frederick A. Huber, of the 
Twenty- third Regiment P. V., (Birney's Zouaves,) who fell on 
the field of honor, May ji t 1862. 



The roll of the drum, the shriek of the fife, 
The swell of the bugle, the clamor and strife 
Of the battle-field wild, rises dark on the air, 
Commingled with breathings of hope and despair. 

But on press our legions, though comrades are falling, 
Though hundreds now sleep past all hopes of recalling, 
In glory, the sleep that shall know no awaking, 
When sounds the reveille at day-light's first breaking. 

Columbia's cohorts are greeting the palm 
With music that hushes both psean and psalm : 
The boom of the cannon, the shriek of the shell 
Was the music of heroes who gallantly fell, 



16 Camp and Hearth. 

As bravely they charged o'er the corpse-covered field, 
For the Union to die, but never to yield 
That starry-girt banner, which proudly shall fly 
Forever, our symbol of triumph, on high. 

The myrmidon-hosts of foemen are coming, 
Undaunted, though wildly the rifle is humming 
The death-knell of thousands, where mingled together 
The horse and his rider lie stiff on the heather. 

"Charge — forward upon them — my brave twenty- 
third;" 
O'er the roll of the drum that order is heard; 
" Charge — forward upon them " — each bayonet gleams, 
E're dimmed with the flow of life's crimson streams. 

The enemy fly ; the stripes and the stars 
Are planted in triumph o'er the stars and the bars : 
But hushed be the anthem and muffled the drum ; 
There's wailing and weeping in many a home. 

None braver, none truer e're yielded his life 
On the death-garnering field of slaughter and strife, 
Than he, whom we mourn, the gallant, the brave, 
Who perished, like Ellsworth, his country to save. 

Together we roamed through youth's dewy bowers, 
Together we culled life's sweet, opening flowers, 
Together we toiled toward the temple of fame 
To write on the future our deeds and our name. 

May God's comfort be mingled with heart-rending 
grief, 



Camp and Hearth. 17 

May the Hand that has stricken bear also relief : 
But, while summer and winter pass swift o'er thy 

grave, 
We ne'er can forget thee, the gallant zouave. 

June 19. 1862. 



IV. BY THE CHICKAHOMINY RIVER. 



The attack of the Confederates upon the Federal army at Fair 
Oaks or Seven Pines was made, May 31st, 1862, whilst a storm of 
great severity was raging. The battle was continued during the fol- 
lowing day, when the sun was shining brightly. 

Wild bursts the storm — 

The sky is riven 
With bolts that flash 

From the dome of heaven : 
But, hark ! above the clamored swell, 
Bursts forth the fierce, inhuman yell 
Of charging men, for whom no bell, 
In death, shall ring a parting knell, 

By the Chickahominy river. 

The storm is raging — 
The thunder drum 
Of heaven peals 
The shrill alarum : 
And answering drums repeat the note ; 
An echo from the cannon's throat, 
With blackness wreathes the clouds which float, 
As if on darker scenes to gloat, 

By the Chickahominy river. 



18 Camp and Hearth. 

The storm has gone — 

But rages yet 
The battle wild;'; 
And bayonet 
Pours fierce and free the crimson flood, 
That oozes through the heel-pressed sod, 
Where mingles water thick with blood : 
Must such things be, righteous God, 

By the Chickahominy river? 

Wild bursts a cry 

On earth and air — 
With moans of pain, 
Revenge, despair: — 
The Southern foes are driven back 
Before the cannon's reeling rack, 
Before our legions fierce attack ; 
But Northern homes have felt their track 

By the Chickahominy river. 

Honor the brave 

Who fell that day; 
Glory guards them 
Forever and aye : 
But drop a tear for the widow's woe — 
The untold anguish, none may know, 
That pierced her heart, like shaft from the bow, 
For one that fell before the foe, 

By the Chickahominy river. 

October 1, 1862. 



Camp and Hearth. 19 

V. THE WOUNDED TO THE DEAD. 



July, 1862. 



Ah ! there you are at last, my comrade ; 

There's a bullet in your throat ; 
But do not fear, my hardy comrade, 

That the foe will o'er you gloat. 

Ha! what a noble charge was that! 

When we swept the field before us ; 
And rose, above the cannon's roar, 

The zouaves' thrilling chorus. 

I guess there's weeping in the hamlet, 

And wailing far away ; 
And many a woman's face is saddened 

By the work we've done to-day. 

I honor you who rest so calm 

On a bed so lone and gory ; 
I'm glad to know your life ran out 

On a battle-field of glory. 

Sweeter to die to roll of drum 
And crack of death-shot's rattle; 

Better to fall, facing the foe, 
In the wildest wave of battle, 

Than moan and toss for weary months, 
With fever crazing your brain ; 

Better to die where balls are plashing 
In a steady, leaden rain. 



20 Camp and Hearth. 

VI. ESCAPED FROM MILLEK 



Within the glades of ivy vine, 

The hunted heroes lay, 
And heard, beyond the swamp's confine. 

The dreaded blood-hound's bay. 

"Our time is short," one weak youth said: 

"To flee we've done our best; 
Ere seeks yon lurid sun its bed, 

Our souls will be at rest. 

" No mercy knows the cruel horde 

That swiftly follows on ; 
But still, I pray to thee, Lord, 

'Thy will, not mine, be done.'" 

" My mother waits for me each day," 

Said one with sunny hair ; 
And long she'll wait and watch and pray 7 

For him so young and fair. 

Sweet sisters in a northern home 

Will hope and wait in vain, 
And, longing, look for him to come, 

They'll never see again. 

Too surely with prophetic words 
They've told their death-knell story: 

An hour — and points of rebel swords 
With patriot blood were gory. 



Camp and Hearth. 21 

Thus died 'neath shades of ivy vine, 

In damp and dark morass, 
Where noxious plants luxuriant twine 

Upon the knotted grass, 

The heroes of a nobler line 

Than Sparta ever bore — 
The patriots of that stormy time, 

Our world-deciding war. 

No monuments above them stand : 

The swamp — their only bier ; 
Their praise — "they saved our native land; " 

Their epitaph — a tear. 



At last — at last — the gods pay well ; 

Give to the winds the story, 
And let our future annals tell 

Of Appomatox' glory. 

Yes, peal the bell and sound the horn, 
Unloose dull-throated cannon ; 

And give to kiss of sunlit morn 
Our nation's starry pennon. 

Rejoice — rejoice, as well ye may, 
For victory great and grand ; 

Let priest in prayer and poet's lay 
Thank God who saved our land. 



22 Camp and Hearth. 

Yet, comrades in that sacred cause, 

We dare not e'er forget 
The brave within that dark morass, 

Whose life-blood, warm and wet, 

That beauteous eve, beneath God's sky, 
Was shed by Treason's hand ; 

The Heroes, who went forth to die 
For Freedom, pure and grand ; 

That gentle youth .with raven hair, 

Beneath the ivy vine, 
Who breathed to Thee, God, the prayer, 

" Thy will be done, not mine ! " 

Nor yet again that other boy — 
A man in thought and pain — 

Whose blood told out a mother's joy, 
Who ne'er will smile again. 

Nor yet alone in Georgian swamps, 

And darkly dismal glen, 
Where died the men that fled the damps 

Of Millen's prison pen, 

Were slain the martyred pioneers 

Of Freedom's second birth, 
Which yet shall give, in future years, 

New life to all the earth. 

Those glorious cohorts of the North 
Have fed our fields of grain ; 



Camp and Hearth. 23 

And many, that went gaily forth, 
Now sleep on Shiloh's plain ; 

And some on Groveton's sunny slopes ; 

Along the Kapidan ; 
And in the Wilderness, the hopes 

Of many an aged one. 

Gettysburg, Pa., June 17, 1868. 



VII. MINNIE ENGLE— JULY 4th, 1864. 



An Incident of the War. 



Sweet Minnie Engle one bright day, 
Stood gazing down the dusty way. 

Her sire, a time-browned son of toil, 
For fifty years had tilled the soil ; 

Most sweetly beamed 'neath locks of gray 
The calmness of life's sinking day. 

He gently spoke when plenty crowned 

The year. In hours when sorrow frowned; — 

" It is not mine to choose or say, 
Thy will be done in Thine own way." 

Minnie knew not a mother's care, 
Had never heard a mother's prayer : 



24 Camp and Hearth. 

Whose soul had fled away from earth, 
When she had given Minnie birth ; 

Her father loved her but the more, 
A link from this to that bright shore, 

Where loves, that here by death are chilled, 
To faith's fond gaze are seen fulfilled. 

She had one brother, good and brave, 
But he had gone our land to save. 

Most sad was Minnie's heart that day, 
Gazing adown the dust-clad way, 

To where, six weary miles beyond, 
Potomac was with verdure crowned. 

Swift passing o'er that fertile land, 
Again had come the Southern band, 

One year before had fought, to fail, 
On bloody hills, where iron hail 

Was " General orders — number one," 
That Meade had sent from line to line. 

Fair Maryland was wild with fear, 
Whilst Jubal Early, drawing near, 

Was sweeping all from friend and foe, 
That had been spared one year ago. 



Camp and Hearth. 25 

But 'twas not that which dimmed the eye 
Of her who gazed on grove and sky : 

She thought and dreamed, as oft before, 
Of him, that now would come no more. 

" One year ago this very day; " 

She murmured, looking down the way ; 

" My brother filled a nameless grave, 
Within the State he came to save : 

" He fills a grave I cannot see, 

Nor strew one rose, loved one, for thee : 

" A comrade saw him bleeding fall, 
In hurried charge and that is all. 

" Alas, and woe for father gray ! 
Alas ! Alas ! for this glad day, 

" That twice has brought our nation life, — 
Lord, still in me this fretful strife." — 

She paused, for down the dust-brown way, 
Came — not the men who wore the gray, 

But, dimly seen in distant view, 
A wanderer lone in ragged blue. 

Near and more near he feebly comes, 
Not as he went, to roll of drums. 
2 



26 Camp and Hearth. 



' Poor man, God bless him," murmured she, 
I'll spread some food beneath this tree : 



6 



" Thank God, although my heart is sad, 
He'll make some wife or sister glad." 

But, as he neared the opened gate, 
And Minnie saw the one, that late 

She wept, as sleeping 'neath the ground, 
She kissed the lost that had been found. 

Thus, midst the stern, sharp wounds of grief, 
There comes sometime a swift relief: 

Thus Minnie felt through smiles the cost 
Of those sad words: " The loved and lost." 

The pangs of war have "passed away; 
But Minnie oft thinks of the day, 

She wished to help the one in blue, 
And fondly clasped a brother true. 

Gettysburg, July, 1868. 




Camp and Hearth. 27 

VIII. FREDERICKSBURG— DEC, 1862. 



On rugged Marye's bloody heights 

The cannon sternly frowned ; 
And belched a hundred batteries 

From the quivering, moaning ground. 

Still up those heights a soldier pressed, 

A flag-staff in his hand ; 
Whilst toward that life-consuming wall 

Pressed on the gallant band. 

With shriekings wild, the men were falling,, 

Like leaves before the blast, 
When bleak Arcturus sendeth forth 

His legions stern and vast. 

But still that noble heart pressed on 

Amid the lurid death, 
That swept from out the cannon's throat, 

Hell's keen, sirocco breath. 

One volley more — the life-blood oozes 

From out the gaping wound : 
And, grasping still the starry flag, 

His lifeless form was found. 

But, ere his soul had winged its flight 

To brighter realms above, 
Where battle-clangor never mars 

The holy home of love. 



28 Camp and Hearth. 

He whispered to a comrade tried, 
Who wiped death's clammy dew : 

" Tell mother, I have bravely died, 
To God and country true." 

Note. — To those familiar with the terrific slaughter caused by 
the unsuccessful attempts to scale the blood-baptized Marye's 
heights, in Burnside's disastrous assault on Fredericksburg, Decem- 
ber, 1862, no explanation is necessary of the terms used in the 
foregoing poem. In a limited area before the stone wall, so bitterly 
remembered by many, there were probably more dead men of the 
Union army, than on any equal area of any battle-field of the war, 
before or after. 



IX. OUR FALLEN BRAVE. 



A poem read in the Grand Opera House, Harrisburg, Pa., at the 
Decoration Ceremonies, May 30, 18 J 6. 



A beauteous land, by Heaven blessed, 

Of every charm and good possessed — 

The fairest land that lies between 

The rising and the setting sun — 

Exulting in its gains of gold, 

Exulting in its wealth untold, 

Exulting in its flag of stars, 

( Defaced, 'twas true, by bondmen's scars,) 

Exulting in the wealth of fame 

That crowned Columbia's brow and name, 

Exulting in its sons so brave 

And in Mt. Vernon's storied grave, 



Camp and Hearth. 29 

Exulting in its wide domains, 

Its inland seas and mighty plains ; 

Was rudely startled from its sleep 

By mutterings, hoarse, discordantjdeep. 

Ah ! well do we remember how 

In dust our heads were made to bow : 

With thunderbolts the sky was red, 

The green fields blushed with slaughter shed. 

From Sumter's dark and frowning wall 

O'er all the land, the voices call 

Of shot and shell from smoking cannon, 

Aimed at our Nation's starry pennon. • 

Ah ! those were days of darkest night ; 

Through ebon clouds there shone no light, 

While traitors fought to place thenars 

Above our glorious stripes and stars. 

A moment all the nation reeled, 
Aghast to find themselves betrayed ; 

Then into solid phalanx wheeled — 
Shoulder to shoulder, blade to blade. 

One awful moment was the pause, 
As wails a bleeding country's call 
Through mountain cot and stately hall, 
Across the bleak New England land, 
And Jersey's coasts of shifting sand, 
Across the Keystone of the Arch, 
And swift, in its impetuous march, 
Reaches the prairies of the West, 
With every form of plenty blest. — 
A moment only. Then 'twas grand 



30 Camp and Hearth. 

To see men rise all o'er the land, 
Lay down the implements of peace, 
Go forth [to battle for the cause 
Of human rights and equal laws, 
And swear the conflict should not cease, 
Till Union, firm and undissolved, 
Should from war's trial be evolved. 

Through all the land a drum is heard, 
That beats but one alarming word ; 
And darkness shrouds each beauteous star, 
As rolls the summons, " War, war, war ! " 
The land of peace was rent with hate. 
O'er verdant fields, now desolate, 
The crimson streams of slaughter ran, 
As, host with host and man with man, 
Brother with brother fiercely lought. 
All faith was gone. Nor was there aught 
Of grief the morrow might not bring 
Afflicted, breaking hearts to wring. 
The maiden mourned each sunny day 
For one, whose lot was far away 
Amidst the cannon's sultry roar — 
'Mid ghastly wounds and human gore. 
The wife oft turned a sunless face 
Toward the memory-saddened place, 
From which the husband waved adieu, 
That morn he donned the Federal blue. 
And then came battles fierce and wild : 
Alas! how oft the babe, that smiled, 
Knew not what meant those scalding tears, 



Camp and Hearth. 31 

Wrung by a mother's doubts and fears, 

That fell upon his infant brow. 
Thousands, the noble of our land, 
From western home and northern strand, 

Before the bloody tempest bow. 
The land was wild with fear and hate, 

Our seas were tinged with blood ; 
From coast to coast, from State to State, 

Rolled in the crimson flood. 

On came the gray, with victory flushed, 
With crimson streams our valleys blushed ; 
Until, upon a northern field, 
Our hosts, determined not to yield, 
In deadly conflict met the foe; 
With fires of death the ridges glow ; 
The green grass blushed with scarlet hue, 
As, some in gray and some in blue, 
Two hundred thousand men, beneath 
The battle's smoke-encircled wreath, 
For days and nights, in contest wild, 
Their myriad victims swiftly piled. 
But over all the smoke and roar, 
O'er corses grim and human gore, 
Flashed up, resplendent to the view, 
'Neath heaven's vault of stars and blue, 
Our Flag — triumphantly victorious — 
In battle's baptism made more glorious. 
How rang our land with psalm and song, 
Through all its length and breadth along, 
When Geary, on the rocky height 



32 Camp and Hearth. 

Of Gettysburg, had put to flight 
The corps of Ewell. And when Lee 
Was forced; with shattered ranks, to flee 
From Meade. Yet, swift the pseans turn 
To dirge of sadness o'er the urn 
Of Reynolds, while a nation's tears 
Fall on five thousand sable biers. 
Brave heroes they. Nor there alone 
The lurid flames of battle shone. 
Our Hartranft, at Antietam bridge, 
And Steadman's life-devouring ridge, 
Placed fadeless laurels on Ms brow ; 
Which bays are brightly blooming now. 
Lives there a man in East or West — 
One of our band, that helped to press 
Rebellion to its final doom, 
That would not smile upon the tomb — 
That will not, here, this day, confess 
He'd rather sleep the dreamless rest 
Of those, who rose from gory fight 
To realms of everlasting light, 
Than not have stood amid the brave^ 
Who fought their nation's life to save? 

At last, at last, the gods pay well : 

A grateful nation's legends tell 

Of Appomattox' crowning glory : 

A listening world repeats the story. 

We hail our nation's star-crowned pennon 

With roar of peace-converted cannon. 

Yet comrades of that darkling night — 



Camp and Hearth. 33 

Survivors of the fierce-fought fight — 
Brave champions of the cause of right, 
We dare not slight the noble slain 
Of Northern hill and Southern plain. 
Their country called : they went to die. 
Some rest beneath a Southern sky ; 
Or, sleep in nameless, unmarked graves, 
Beside the deep Gulf's murmuring waves : 
Some sleep in woods and thickets wild, 
Where sunbeams never yet have smiled ; 
In lone lagoon and dismal swamps. 
Thousands expired amid the damps 
Of Libby's strength-devouring hell; 
And other valiant thousands fell 
On every field of blood and death, 
Where flashed the cannon's sulphur breath. 
We saved our land; but when, God! 
Did people pass 'neath bloodier rod ? 
When ere was paid a price so great, 
Since first were spun the threads of fate ? 
In starry spheres is rung their knell, 
And all eternity shall tell 
Their praise, who, swift, at God's command, 
Rushed on to rescue our fair land. 

'Tis mete that we assembled here, 
In this our glad, Centennial year — 
Our hundredth natal day so near, 
Should honor well the gallant men, 
Who died in field and prison-pen ; 
Give rein to fancy and survey 



34 Camp and Hearth. 

On this, the dearest, saddest day 

Of all the year, how good a land — 
How blest with Heaven's smile — is ours : 
Then deck with sweetest, fairest flowers 
The graves of those, without whose aid, 
Within the tomb would have been laid 
Our nation's life, assailed, betrayed, 

By traitorous heart and traitorous hand. 

To-day on consecrated grounds, 
That heave and swell with soldier mounds, 
All o'er our wide and fair domain — 
Prom Northern pine to Western plain — 

From rugged coast to swelling wave, 
Where San Joaquin's bright sands are lost 

Within the rising tides that lave 
The Golden Land's extended coast; 
A nation's chivalry have met, 
Where once rose fort and parapet. 
Beauty and age and valorous youth, 
The honored friends of worth and truth, 
The noble men of every State, 
The fair, the valiant, and the great, 
In mighty hosts have gathered — there — 
And there — and here — and everywhere — 
To place anew the laurel wreath 
On brows, that, by the seal of death, 
Transported to Elysian dome, 
Left breaking hearts and blasted home. 

And yet no act of homage given 



Camp and Hearth. 35 

By us, who still remain below, 
Can soothe the hearts by anquish riven, 

Or add one glory to the brow 
Of those asleep. Consider then 
How we may honor best the men, 
" Who gave their lives for you and me," 
That all our land from sea to sea, 
In fact, as well as name, might be 

Land of the Free. Their lives have grasped 
A mighty nation's throbbing heart; 
Of its own life become a part, 

In its embraces firmly clasped. 

The truest homage we can give 

Is so to act and so to live, 

That we may hand their nation down 

Increased in honor and renown : 

That we may guard the nation well 

For which they fought ; for which they fell. 

Fold them, Father, in thy arms ; 
Where, ever safe from war's alarms. 
Those broken, sundered ties may be 
Magnets to lead our lives to Thee. 



36 Camp and Hearth. 

X. BLENDED LIVES. 



Lincoln and Everett. 



A poem read before the Teachers' Institute of the City of Harris- 
burg, November 6th, iSyj. 



Edward Everett, one of the greatest of American scholars, ora- 
tors, and statesmen, was, in i860, the candidate for Vice-President 
on the ticket of the Union and Constitution party, the aim of which 
was by mutual concessions, to avert the storm then impending. 
There were four presidential tickets in the field, all of which re- 
ceived some electoral votes, the election, however, resulting in the 
choice of Lincoln and Hamlin. 

Everett had previously filled many important positions, amongst 
which were the following: Professor of Greek in Harvard Univer- 
sity, president of the same institution, ten years of service in the 
National House of Representatives, Governor of Massachusetts, 
United States Senator, Secretary of State for the United States, and 
Minister to the Court of St. James. By his writings and lectures he 
collected one hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of Mt. 
Vernon to be the property of the nation. 

On the 19th of November, 1863, in the presence of at least thirty 
thousand people, a portion of the Gettysburg battle-field was dedi- 
cated as a National Cemetery. On that occasion Lincoln and Everett 
met for the first time, the latter delivering the oration of the day ; 
whilst the former uttered those immortal words, known the world 
over, commencing: "Four-score and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, 
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." 

This was also the last meeting of these two great men. Everett 
died in January, 1865, three months before the assassination of 
Lincoln. 



Camp and Hearth. 37 

Autumnal leaves were russet-hued : 

('Twas many years ago ; ) 
And autumn winds were murmuring 

A dirge-chant sad and low. 

On cold and bleak New England's shore, 

A manly form we see, 
A youth as fair as fabled gods 

Of Grecian story be. 

Far in the West, amid expanses 

Of prairie, marsh and wood, 
Brave pioneers with want were struggling 

To live as best they could. 

Among the settlers we behold 

In this dim, border land, 
We spy a lonely cabin rude ; 

Within, a humble band : 

And one of these, a youth uncouth, 

Whom fates of wealth deny — 
Unschooled, but with the noble heart, 

Nor blood, nor wealth can buy. 



Years pass away : in stately home, 
In the Athens of our land, 

The former , by the midnight lamp, 
The laws of nature scanned. 



38 Camp and Hearth. 

High honors sat upon his brow 
From Harvard's classic portal ; 

Already gleamed the laurel wreaths, 
That deck his name immortal — 

Immortal, as his country's life, 

Immortal, as her story, 
That ever glides ado wn the years, 

Replete with marks of glory. 

Of noble blood, with genius blest, 
By cultured friends surrounded, 

Who gave to each new, daring flight 
The meed of praise unbounded ; 

Step after step he nobly won 
Up Science's cloud-capped fane, 

And drew from earth and stars above 
Fresh trophies in his train. 

A linquist rare, of courtly grace ; 

A speaker sweet as Tully; 
The listening millions loved the man 

Whose life no vices sully. 

In sacred desk — in council halls, 
Where sat Columbia's sages, 

He breathed forth words that ever ring 
Adown the future ages. 

Place after place of highest trust, 
Bestowed on him deserving; 



Camp and Hearth. 39 

The nation found him ever just — 
Of wrong, the foe unswerving. 

In foreign lands, beyond the deep, 
. Revered by every station ; 
Men learned through him to more respect 
And better know our nation. 

Versed in all lore, his friends were men 

Of noble life and manners ; 
And every science had his name 

Inscribed upon her banners. 



The awkward youth of western wilds 

Had slowly plodded on ; 
And something too — of local fame — 

By industry, had won. 

But yet, an awkward man was he, 
Homely and stern, but good, 

Who struggled hard from work to wring 
A family's daily food : 

A careworn face, and yet the shade 
The sunlight oft broke through ; 

And men, who knew, said, to the right 
As steel he would be true. 

*fi *^ *fc *$+ *y+ ?jC 

Swift years of peace had flown away, — 



40 Camp and Hearth. 

With each returning natal day, 
Our nation, on its upward way, 
Basking 'neath Liberty's bright ray, 
Exulted in a land the best 
The foot of man had ever pressed — 
The fabled. Islands of the Blest, 
That, ancient myths, far in the West 

Had placed beyond Atlantic wave ; 
Exulted in the memories grand, 
That thrill from sire to son ; the band, 
Who nobly stood round Washington, 
And when their work was fully done, 
When Freedom's fight was fully won, 
Returned to hearthstones long grown cold; 

In all the trophies bright that lave 
Our starry ensign's every fold ; 

In daughters fair, and heroes brave, 
Whose deeds of valor, often told, 

Will be, in every age and time, 

A theme of song for every clime. 

Now quick the change to death and woe, 

Beneath a fratricidal blow, 

'Mid varied dreadful scenes of slaughter, 

And conflicts wild on land and water. 

Within the keystone of the"Arch, 

At length was curbed rebellion's march. 

There, fields all clothed in summer green, 

Ravines of rock that yawned between, 

The mountains clothed with oak and pine, 

The hills that formed the Federal line, 



Camp and Hearth. 41 

All quivered with volcanic throes, 

As fiercely rushed the Union's foes, 

In legions stern, in grand array, 

To mingle in the battle fray. 

There, serried hosts, mid rows of cannon, 

Mid shrieks and groans and blood-stained pennon, 

Mid all the dreadful sights and sounds 

Of fierce-fought field ; the horrid wounds, 

That render life a living death, 
Mid fair-haired youths that grasping lay, 

And thought of home, with dying breath, 
And heart-sore mothers far away ; — 
Rushed on. No lull of strife is there : 
No white- winged bird can breath that air. 
They fell 'neath grape and shell and sword ; 
And some life's crimson tide outpoured 
Before the glittering bayonet, 
By grand libations dimmed and wet. 
The ages with the valor swell 
Of those, at Gettysburg, who fell. 

And now from rocky steep and hill, 
From verdant field and babbling rill, 
Rise marble monuments to stand 

And guard the sleeping dust beneath 
Of those, who fought for native land, 

When Treason's darkling hosts assailed. 
Theirs is the fadeless laurel wreath, 
Brighter than crowns the warrior sage, 
Who fought for Greece with noble rage 

At Marathon. No hero quailed, 
3 



42 Camp and Hearth. 

When shot-torn comrades round him wailed 
The dying pangs of agony, 
That blent with shouts of victory. 

With cycling months, November chill 
Has cast its gloom o'er dale and hill ; 
And other hosts have gathered there, 
To breathe from that heroic air 
New inspiration in the cause 
Of equal rights and equal laws — 

Of Union firm and undissolved. 
Amid the mighty concourse there, 
The wise, the great, the famed, the fair, 

Who on that altar high resolved 
Those dead should not have died in vain — 
That, from the storm of leaden rain, 
That late had swept those glens and heights, 
Should spring new birth of equal rights ; 
That, under God, the nation should, 
And, by His grace, it quickly would 
Have birth anew to Liberty, 
Dissolved from league with slavery ; 
That, from this new, this second birth 
Of Freedom on a slave-cursed earth, 
The Peopled government should be 

The People for — the People by, 
Till all our land be truly free 

And every form of wrong should die, — 
Two noble forms attract all eyes : 

The one, a man with face serene, 

As calmly grave as Washington ; 



Camp and Hearth. 43 

The other, somewhat rough and rude, 
Yet in his homely face there lies 

A look so patient, brave and "good, 
That hoary sires and ladies sweet, 
With fond acclaims, his progress greet; 
And, wheresoe'er his steps were bent, 
A nation's blessings with him went 
On him, the Nation's President. 

And thus they met around the urn, 
Where holy memories throng each turn 

Of wood and dell and tangled ridge : 
The one, the man of talent rare ; 
The other, bowed with work and care : 
Thusy^ they met above those graves, 
Where slept the nation's "guardian braves — 

Those two, who once had rivals been 
To reach the nation's highest places, 

In loving fellowship are seen, 

While speaking forth the words that bridge 
The Present in the Past's embraces : 
The one, with all the studied graces 

Of orator almost divine ; 
The other, standing on the portal 

Of Heaven, there to brightly shine 
Among the hosts of the Immortal, 
When, all his life-work fully done, 

His soul, through murderer's hand, shall rise 

Above Columbia's weeping skies, 
Our nation's second Washington, — 

Speaks words that burn down all the ages, 



44 Camp and Hearth. 

Speaks words that glow on history's pages, 

As long as valor is adored, 

As long as goodness is revered. 
Yet, few and simple words were they, 

That struck a nation's throbbing heart, 
And, on its stern, resistless way 
To nobler faith and purer day, 

Of its own life became a part. 

Now autumn once again has come, 

And soon is merged in winter's gloom, 

And winter, melting into spring, 

Beheld a weeping nation bring 

Its garland memories of grief 

With which to crown our fallen chief. 

He died, beneath a murderer's hand, 

The noblest man of all our land. 

A nation wept a father slain ; 

On Northern hill and Southern plain 

For him alike mourned free and slave ; 

The tears of beauty wet his grave, 

And bearded men, the bravest brave, 

Wept bitterly. But not alone 

The lance of death on him had shown : 
The other, too, the Nation wept ; 
One in the East, one in the West, 

A mighty continent between, 
With undivided heart they slept, 

While nature spread her living green, 

Where men, the bravest and the best, 
Repose in holy, dreamless rest. 



Camp and Hearth. 45 

Though distant far and wide asunder 
The turfs their mouldering forms lie under, 
Their names together through the ages 
Forever shine on history's pages. 



XL A DEPARTED COMRADE. 



Suggested by the presence of two hundred uniformed comrades 
of the Grand Army of the Republic, at the funeral of William H. 
Shettle, at Oyster's Point,, near Harrisburg, Sunday, October 26, 
1884. 

'Tis mete that we assemble here, 

To deck with garlands fair, 
Our fallen comrade on his bier ; 

While swells upon the air 
The dirge from muffled drum and fife, 

That mourns for hero true, 
As brave as ever risked his life 

In wearing of the blue. 

To him, in battle's fiercest heat, 

Our hearts with ]ove were given ; 
Our country saved, to-day we meet — 

Those love-ties rudely riven. 
Rest, hero, in thy hill-side grave, 

Where comrades sadly bore thee; 
Long may the land you fought to save, 

Her stars and stripes wave o'er thee. 



46 Camp and Hearth. 

XII. A RETROSPECT— January 1, 1862. 



The first year of the war for the suppression of the Rebellion 
was attended with varying fortunes, but was, on the whole, rather 
discouraging to loyal hearts. The following lines were written 
January I, 1862, referring to the uprising of the Northern States 
for the suppression of the Rebellion, and some of the disasters of 
the year. 

Grown proud in the might of prosperity's power, 
Forgetting the bondman who labored for naught — 

Lo ! ruin and death hurled forth in an hour, 

The blood-bedewed liberty, our ancestors bought, 

Trampled low 'neath the feet of hirelings and knaves, 
Of sycophants, mammonites, breeders of slaves, 

Of legions, who rush o'er the grass-covered graves 
Of the heroes who fell where the starry flag waves. 

Secession — disunion — fell password of slaughter, 
Thy crimes would have darkened the annals of blood, 

When floated the standard o'er land and o'er water, 
Of Attilla, self-styled scourge of the Lord. 

The tyrants that cherished thy elder-born brother, 

Slavery, foeman to God and mankind, 
Shouted Bacchanal greetings one to another, 

" Rejoice at our joy : freedom flees like the wind." 

But, hark! midst the gloom^of fear and of anguish ; 

The shouts that arise from Freedom's proud host, 
From the shores of Pacific, where soft zephyrs languish - 

Midst forests gigantic that girdle her coast, 



Camp and Hearth. 47 

Are re-echoed along the deeply-worn chasms, 
The rocks that encircle the Puritans' land, 

The fiords old ocean in maniac spasms 

Scoops deep in the granite converted to sand. 

From Maine and New Hampshire, the land of Green 
Mountains, 

From the rock that shall live in all annals of time, 
Where wild, wintry winds, not plashing of fountains, 

Is the fierce-shrieking music of an ice-girdled clime, 

Comes the deep, ringing shout of a people still free, 
Who, awaking from dreams, see Freedom betrayed : 

The war-chant aroused by the wild, raging sea 

Sweeps o'er city and hamlet, o'er forest and glade. 

Across the broad prairies the echoes awake, 

That ring from the mounts of the Key of the Arch ; 

From the west to the east, from ocean to lake, 
Is sounded the key-note that hurries the march. 

The bosoms of millions are breasting the storm, 
The land of the pine is greeting the palm ; 

Sends greeting with cannon and death's ghastly form, 
That changes to wailing both psean and psalm. 

All honor to Anderson, hero of mortals, 
And honor to those who stood by his side ; 

Sure Greece in her fables of gods and immortals, 
Nor Rome in her power of dominion and pride, 

Ne'er painted so much of firmness and duty, 
So much of devotion to country and man : 



48 Camp and Hearth. 

Midst the fires of that hell, a halo of beauty 
Encircled thy brow. Thy work was well done. 

The roar of the cannon volcanic that hurled 
The tempest of wrath on thee and thy band, 

Sent a thrill to the free all over the world, 
And to weary watchers in each foreign land : 

It roused the heart of the loyal North 

That long had been gagged as a lion bound ; 

The tempest of wrath came bursting forth, 
Swift to the prey as Llewellyn's hound. 



A psean, a dirge, a prayer and a vow, 
Commingled together go up to our God ; 

At the shrine of His judgment, corrected, we bow; 
His blessings forgotten, He uses the rod. 

A psean we raise to His throne for success, 
That smiles on our arms on land and on sea ; 

That will carry our flag to every recess, 

And wave o'er one land — the flag of the free. 

A dirge for the brave who sink to their rest ; 

May zephyrs chant sweet a reveille for you : 
With heads lowly pillowed on earth's glooming breast, 

Requiescant in pace — brave, noble, and true. 

A dirge for our Ellsworth of Warren's descent, 
A dirge for our Lyon, a hero sublime, 



Camp and Hearth. 49 

A dirge for Corcoran in prison walls pent, 

For the thousands whose glory shall live for all time. 

A prayer to our God to prosper the cause, 

Our hearts and our hands are pledged in sustaining ; 

Its bulwark, our just and beneficent laws, 

Its keystone, the right of the people's ordaining. 

A vow to press on till our banner shall float, 
In triumph unsullied, o'er all our domain; 

And the sunshine of heaven on its beauties shall gloat, 
From the lakes to the gulf, o'er mountain and plain. 



XIII. THE GREAT RE-UNION. 



Whilst a few of the battle-scarred veterans are meeting on the 
field of Gettysburg, we can never forget the mighty throng that can 
attend no earthly reunion. 

In sullen gloom the night came down, 

A murky night of storm ; 
'Mid lightning blasts of heaven's frown 

I saw a stately form — 
A gaunt, weird form on charger gray, 

Who blew a bugle blast ; 
The hoof-beats, clattering down the way, 

Into the darkness passed. 

But sounds portentous groaned around, 

The cannon's sullen roar, 
That clouded sky and shook the ground 

As in the days of yore ; 



50 Camp and Hearth. 

And I, in visioned dreams had passed, 

The bloody fields beside, 
As waking to that bugle blast 

I saw the spectres glide, 

Who sleep upon a thousand fields, 

And form in rank once more ; 
Red Shiloh forth its quota yields, 

And Newburn's foam-kissed shore ; 
Still on and on the myriads press — 

The army of the grave — 
The heroes that, our souls confess, 

Died our fair land to save. 

In corps and grand divisions formed, 

An endless line they seemed ; 
The ranks that Lookout Mountain stormed, 

With burnished bayonets gleamed ; 
And Ellsworth proudly led the van, 

With starry flag unfurled ; 
Along the ranks the watch-word ran, 

" Freedom to all the world." 

And veterans from Antietam's bridge 

Pressed to their well-known places ; 
From Steadman's life-devouring ridge 

Came long forgotten faces ; 
And Reynolds rode his charger proud, 

That snuffed afar the battle, 
Where hovered dense the sulphur cloud 

Above the death-shot's rattle. 



Camp and Hearth. 51 

Grim Kearney rode the lines along, 

And Sedgwick, too, was there ; 
While deep and clear the battle song 

Rose on the trembling air ; 
And Lyon, bravest of the brave, 

With visage pale and gory ; 
And Baker, whom untimely grave 

Checked in his path of glory. 

And there were Chicamauga's slain, 

McPherson true and tried ; 
And those who on dark Fair Oak's plain 

Gave forth life's ebbing tide. 
The Wheat-field yielded up its dead, 

From out the Devil's Den, 
From rocky cliff and gory bed, 

Rose stalwart Northern men. 

From Vicksburg's shot-torn fire of hell 

The teeming ranks press on ; 
And those who faced the battle yell 

'Neath Charleston's fiery sun ; 
McCook in shadowy grandeur rides, 

And Reno's eagle eye 
Along the blue-girt cohorts glides, 

To lead to victory. 

All night with measured tread and slow, 

To the cannon's sullen roar, 
The hosts who fell so long ago 

Marched as in days of yore ; 



52 Camp and Hearth. 

And ghostly bugles wildly swelled 

Upon the darkling air, 
As when those notes in battle pealed 

The soldiers' dirge and prayer. 

Harrisburg, Pa., July 2, 1887. 




Camp and Hearth. 53 



TRANSLATION OF "DIES IRAK" 



Published in Pennsylvania College Monthly ', of February, i8j8. 



With respect to the natural genius and quality of the sacred Latin 
poetry, we may perhaps be pardoned in presenting, as an apposite 
introduction, the following observations translated from Fortlage, 
an eminent German critic : 

" The fire of revelation in its strong and simple energy by which, 
as it were, it rends the rock and bursts the icy barriers of the human 
heart, predominates in those oldest pieces of the sacred Latin poesy 
which are comprised in the Ambrosian hymnology ; a species of song 
which moves in the simplest tones and seldom uses rhyme. Its 
chief characteristic is the absence of ornament. This can well be 
called the primal song of Christendom, the song of its moral force — 
for by it Christianity begot in the soul of her confessors a stoicism 
which overcame the world, and which, by its untiring persistence, at 
length won victory for the cross. 

" The fire of enthusiasm and sentiment, which in the old Roman 
song never came to an immediate outburst, gleamed brightly up, 
however, in Spain, especially in the poesy of Prudentius. As we 
listen to him the soul welters in deep and strong emotion. From 
this has risen whatever of most sublime, magnificent, and fair, the 
sacred poesy of Christendom has brought to light. By him the 
heights of a freer and more ecstatic melody were reached, in oppo- 
sition to the more measured and subdued notes of elder Rome ; 
just as, in the profane poetry of the South, the many-colored lights 
of Calderon differ from the more sombre severity of Dante and the 
exquisitely compounded hues of Tasso. 

" Under Fortunatus this fuller strain of song proceeded to Italy, in 
the shuddering notes of the ' Vexilla Regis, 1 and * Pange Lingua, 1 
and there unites, as at a later day in France, with the rich veins of 
song opened by a Peter Domiani, Thomas Aquinas, Adam of St. 
Victor, Bernard, and Bonaventura; until, at last, it reached its hi^h- 



54 Camp and Hearth. 

est summit in the terrors of the flaming * Dies Irae? and the pathos 
of the tearful l Stab at Mater.'' But that which spans the distance 
between them both, and in which consists the depth of the Chris- 
tian poetry, is the element of a deep remorse, in which the wood of 
the cross appears, like a wonder-working tree, as the central mys- 
tery of Christianity." 

The " Dies Irae" is undoubtedly the best known of all the Latin 
hymns of the middle ages. Although it has been disputed, we do 
not hesitate to ascribe it to the authorship of Thomas De Celano. 
Without entering into the controversy, which has been waged upon 
the subject, we deem it sufficient to state that his claim has been 
fully vindicated by those whose researches and scholarship best en- 
title them to pronounce a judgment, by authorities as eminent as 
Lisco, Mohnike, and Geiseler. 

Neither will we discuss the three rival lections of this celebrated 
hymn — that of the Mantuan marble, the text of Haemmerlin, or the 
Roman missal. Daniel, (very conclusive authority,) inclines to the 
opinion, that the last contains it in the shape which it bore on first 
leaving the hands of the composer; while the others present the 
residuum of two successive recisions. 

The first mention of this flrosa, as it is technically called, is in a 
work of Bartholemew of Pisa, who died in 1401. It was found by 
Daniel in all the Italian missals, but from their date it is evident 
that it did not come in general use as a part of the church service 
earlier than the sixteenth century. As its author was a Minorite 
friar, it doubtless obtained its currency throughout Europe from the 
missals of the Franciscan order, as did also the " Stabat Mater.'''' 

"Is it not wonderful," says Mr. Trench in a note on this hymn, 
"that a poem such as this should have continually allured and con- 
tinually defied translators." The first English version is by Crashaw, 
in 1648. It is in quatrains, and is rather a reproduction than a 
translation. It was also rendered into English by the Earl of Ros- 
common; and Johnson tells us in his "Lives of the Poets," that 
the dying Earl uttered in his last moments with great energy two 
lines of his own version. Sir Walter Scott has also introduced an 
English version of a few of the opening stanzas in the "Lay of the 



Camp and Hearth. 55 

Last Minstrel." It is recorded of the great Dr. Johnson himself, 
that, whenever he attempted to repeat it, he could never pass the 
stanza ending, " Tantus labor non sit cassus" without bursting into 
a flood of tears. 

In all, about one hundred translations have appeared in England, 
and nearly the same number in this country, those of General Dix 
being the best known. Excellent as are some of the General's 
renderings, he never seemed satisfied with any of his efforts, but for 
years endeavored to excel himself. In Germany a still greater 
number of translations have appeared, more than one hundred being 
catalogued in a recent German work. In France also a number of 
translations have appeared, but none of any great merit. The 
French tongue is not adapted to the representation in glowing 
words of thoughts as majestic as those that breathe in this grand 
poem. In all about three hundred and sixty translations of various 
degrees of merit have appeared in different languages, including 
one into ancient Greek and one into Hebrew. 

We need hardly add that it was upon the " Dies Irae" that 
Mozart founded his celebrated requiem, in the composition of 
which his excitement became so great as to induce death before 
his task had been completed. 

Original. 

1. Dies irae, dies ilia, 
Solyet saeclum in fa villa ; 
Teste David cum Sybilla. 

2. Quantus tremor est futurus, 
Quando Judex est venturus, 
Cuncta stricte discussurus, 

3. Tuba mirum spargens sonum, 
Per sepulchra regionum, 
Coget omnes ante thronum. 



56 Camp and Hearth. 

4. Mors stupebit, et natura 
Cum resurget creatura, 
Judicanti responsura. 

5. Liber scriptus proferetur, 
In quo totum continetur, 
Unde mundus judicetur, 

6. Judex ergo cum sedebit, 
Quidquid latet apparebit, 
Nil inultum remanbit. % 

7. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? 
Quern patronum rogaturus, 
Cum vix Justus sit securus ? 

8. Rex tremendae majestatis, 
Qui salvandos salvas gratis, 
Salve me, fons pietatis. 

9. Recordare, Jesu pie, 
Quod sum causa tuae viae, 
Ne me perdas ilia die. 

10. Quaerens me sedisti lassus, 
Redemisti crucem passus ! 
Tantus labor non sit cassus. 

11. Juste Judex ultionis, 
Donum fac remissionis 
Ante diem rationis. 

12. Ingemisco tanquam reus, 
Culpa rubet vultus meus ; 
Supplicanti parce Deus. 



Camp and Hearth. 57 

13. Qui Mariam absolvisti, 
Et latronem exaudisti, 
Mihi quoque spem dedisti. 

14. Preces meae non sunt dignae, 
Sed tu, bone, fac benigne; 
Ne perenni cremer igne. 

15. Inter oves locum praesta, 
Et ab haedis me sequestra, 
Statuens in parte dextra. 

16. Confutatis maledictis, 
Flammis acribus addictis, 
Voca me cum benedictis. 

17. Oro supplex et acclinis, 
Cor contritum quasi cinis. 
Gere curam mei finis. 

18. Lachrymosa dies ilia, 
Qua reserget ex favilla, 
Judicandus homo reus, 
Huic ergo parce, Deus. 

Translation. 

1. Stern day of wrath to every nation, 
When worlds shall melt in conflagration — 
Foretold by seers of lofty station. 

2. How great the fear assailing mortals, 

When comes the Judge from heavenly portals 
To give our place mid the immortals ! 
4 



58 Camp and Hearth. 

3. A trumpet, blown with blast of thunder, 
And rending marble tombs asunder, 
Shall summon all in silent wonder. 

4. Pale death shall quake, and nature reeling, 
With all mankind in terror kneeling, 
Shall see the graves their spoil revealing. 

5. From books by God's own fingers traced, 
From which no deed can be erased, 
Shall all be honored or disgraced. 

6. Enthroned shall sit the Judge unerring, 
Who will reveal all here occurring ; 

No just revenge on gilt deferring. 

7. Alas ! vile me by sin enslaved, 

No saint dare plead for me depraved, 
Since scarce the righteous can be saved. 

8. Almighty King of boundless power, 
To suppliant souls a gracious tower, 
Save me : Thy goodness on me shower. 

9. 0, precious Jesus, now remember 

Thy earthly cross ; Thy blood, remember- 
In that dread day be my defender. 

10. Thou earnest to seek me — wondrous story— 
To save my soul Thy cross was gory. 

0, let that love now lead to glory. 

11. 0, Righteous Judge of retribution, 
Now grant me perfect absolution, 
Ere comes my day of dissolution. 



Camp and Hearth. 59 

12. I groan, my utter vileness owning, 

With crimson cheek my shame bemoaning; 
Yet ask Thy power my guilt condoning: 

13. For Mary's crime was all remitted ; 
The dying thief, by Thee acquitted, 
Gives hope my plea may be admitted. 

14. Although my prayers are vile and carnal,. 
Grant me Thy love, Thy grace supernal ; 
Nor send my soul to flames eternal. 

15. Grant me a place among the saved, 
Not on the left with men depraved, 
But on Thy right my name engraved. 

16. When the accursed to hell are driven — 
To everlasting burnings given, 

Call me with saints to yonder Heaven. 

17. A suppliant low, I beg remission, 
With heart like ashes all contrition ; 
In death's sad hour hear my petition. 

18. 0, dreadful day of woe and wailing, 

All human thoughts and crimes unveiling; 
When man, the creature, stands before Thee, 
Grant him remission, "God of Glory." 



60 Camp and Hearth. 



THE DOOM OF THE SLAVER; OR, THE 
PHANTOM SHIP. 



Originally published in the " National Era" of Washington, D. C. 



Five thousand years ! Five thousand years ! upon 
the ocean's foam, 

Five thousand years ! Five thousand years ! but yet 
no sight of home ; 

Still forty spectral forms are seen upon our sun- 
cursed deck, 

And forty spectral forms still curse each slow-revolv- 
ing week. 

Our sinews are hot iron now, our hearts are molten 
lead, 

And ever, ever famishing, we seek in vain for bread ; 

The shriveled forms and ghastly eyes that peer with- 
out the shrouds, 

Fit emblems are of sun-parched realms unblessed by 
floating clouds. 

Behold ! vast bowers and arbors gaunt, far down the 

briny sea, 
And there are bowers and arbors, too, upon yon 

sun-parched lea ; 
But they are homes and revelling halls for a demon, 

phantom race, 
That ever flit and brood around, and haunt the wide 

expanse. 



Camp and Hearth. 61 

The sun beamed bright on field and plain and on the 
mountain's brow, 

When from a Cretan port sailed we to Nilus lying 
low: 

Six days of storm without the sun and three of flow- 
ing tide 

Soon bore us to an unknown realm beyond Atlantia's 
side. 

We drifted on through torrid climes, where sun- 
beams never sleep, 

And 'neath the brow of snow-capped mounts reluct- 
antly we creep ; 

From out these snow-capped mountains drear, there 
blaze eternal flames, 

Whilst down the rugged sides of rock pour liquid,, 
fiery streams. 

But they are past, and soon is gone their deep, volca- 
nic roar, 

As through a boundless, azure sea, with stiffening 
gale, we soar : 

Pull forty days we sped along and left the world be- 
hind — 

A thousand phantom forms we saw, but land we 
could not find. 

And now, without a ruffled wave, the surges down- 
ward flow 

To parched realms of azure blue and drear domains 
below ; 



62 Camp and Hearth. 

Here floating ice and burning snow forever dance 

along, 
And demons howl our requiem in dull, discordant 

song. 

The scorching sky was spread above and waves of 

fire below, 
As on and on, through parching w T aves, to lower 

realms we go ; 
Till, as one vast, inclining plain, the sea glides to the 

shore, 

Where in a cycle's deadly coil the polar whirlpools 
roar. 

We look in vain for moistening dew, or rain's refresh- 
ing fall ; 

The phantoms glide around our ship and mock our 
frantic call — 

And now all hope of aid is fled, as round and round 
we float, 

Whilst in our phosphorescent track misshapen satyrs 
gloat. 

Then, when we pace the burning deck, arise fond, 

dazzling dreams 
Of tantalizing waters bright, and cool and gurgling 

streams-^- 
Our hearts beat quick with fear and hate, our minds 

roam far and wide — 
'Twere sure enough to drive you mad, with demons 

by your side. 



Camp and Hearth. 63 

We grasp in vain the ice around, the white, translu- 
cent snow — 

Strange contrast to the fiery realms and boiling 
waves below. 

Oh ! what is pain, or woe, or death, or aught that 
mortals dread, 

To this the death thou cannot die — to be forever dead — 

To live forever tossed around on gloom's asphaltic 

wave, 
And Ghouls stretch forth their bony hands to taunt, 

but not to save; 
Thus whilst, through endless myriad years, revolving 

ages roll, 
There is no rest from pain or death, no comfort for 

the soul. 

Thus on and on forevermore our gloom shall ever 

last, 
And each revolving morn shall be a token of the 

past; 
And now comes up a hideous shout, in concert now 

they yell, 
" Ye sought to traffic in men's souls : this is the 

slaver's hell." 

Pennsylvania College, September, 1859. 



64 Camp and Hearth. 

TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF DAVID 
A. BUEHLER, 

Vice President of Gettysburg Battle-field Association, President of 
Board of Trustees of Pennsylvania College, &>c., &C, &c. 



More fadeless than the laurel wreath 

That decks the warrior brave, 
The legacy pure men bequeath 

That lives beyond the grave- 
That lives and shines a beacon light 

To all who know their worth ; 
Their every deed a beaming light 

To bless and cheer our earth. 

In unison we sadly mourn 

The loss of one so true ; 
Life's ties by death are rudely torn ; 

We bid the last adieu, 
With grieving hearts and faltering hands, 

Whilst, looking through our tears, 
The fadeless, sunny Summer Land 

To Faith's fond gaze appears. 

Securely in the Father's arms, 

No care assails thee now ; 
Forever done with life's alarms, 

With " Victor " on thy brow, 
We know that thousands here below 

Will bless thy blameless name, 
And, chastened by the bitter blow, 

Will strive to live the same. 



Camp and Hearth. 65 

We know that lives like thine are given 

To bless the human race, 
And lead them to the courts of Heaven 

To view the Father's face ; 
That when to us rolls back the veil 

That hides the better land, 
With thrills delightful we shall hail 

The welcome of thy hand. 

Harrisburg, Pa., January 28, 1887. 



OPTIMISM. 



Inscribed to S *****. 



Sometime 'tis night, no gleam of light, 

Sometime the sunbeams glowing ; 
Yet constant still, I feel the thrill — 

The music overflowing 
From Nature's choir, ascending higher 

With every orb's pulsation, 
With ceaseless praise to endless days 

And loftier aspiration, 

That sin may end, and minds may blend 

To life's complete fruition — 
The bond of love, commenced above, 

Before this orb's creation ; 
No jar is there, but through the air, 

Chant alway day and night, 
From pearly spheres, devoid of cares, 

The fairy bands of light. 



66 Camp and Hearth. 

Yet I, who know, that sorrow's blow 

Leads to a life diviner, 
That every ill conducts us still 

To heights of love sublimer, 
May join that strain — that world's refrain — 

In key subdued and minor, 
And in my sphere of duty here 

Sing Love, the great refiner. 

Some human hearts misfortune parts, 

That nature tuned together, 
That they should cheer each other here 

In calm or stormy weather ; 
From breezes bright, rise storms of night, 

Such trusting hearts to sever ; 
And torn apart, each loving heart 

Seems doomed to bleed forever. 

Yet clear and bright, o'er the depths of night, 

Shines up a starry Aidenn — 
The home of the blest, where the weary rest 

In peerless bowers of Eden ; 
While seeming ill conducts us still . 

From the crowded earth-shrine portal 
To the fairer land, to the sinless band, 

To the realms of the Immortal. 

We're parting now, but when I bow 

Before the Bounteous Giver, 
There'll come from me a prayer for thee, 

That down life's winding river, 



Camp and Hearth. 67 

A light may glide, each bark beside, 

To the blessed home supernal, 
And, life complete, that- we may meet 

In glow of Life Eternal. 

July 14, 1887. 



THE SUNNY MEADS OF FLORA DALE. 



A Song of "May." 



A houseless wretch, of home bereft, 

I wander on from door to door ; 
The weary miles behind me left 

But tell of other miles before. 
The snow sweeps darkling through the air, 

The winter's blast is keen and cold, 
While memory dwells on scenes so fair — 

More dear to me than can be told. 

Cho. — Sweet, sunny meads of Flora Dale, 

Where once so blithe of heart and gay, 
I roamed with Mary o'er each vale, 

Through all the pleasant month of May. 

I thought her true, nor dreamt that pain 
Could ever cross my flowery way ; 

The birds, that caught our love refrain, 
Made sweeter music all the day. 

She plighted firm her love to me 



68 Camp and Hearth. 

By babbling brook in that sweet vale ; 
No fairer could the angels be 

Than was my love of Flora Dale. 
Cho. — Sweet, &c. 

So passed those golden hours away, 

To memory still so sadly sweet ; 
We loved through all the month of May, 

And parted then, no more to meet ; 
The love was sparkling in her eye, 

When last she kissed a fond adieu ; 
I clasped her in a sad good-bye ; 

She vowed to be forever true. 
Cho. — Sweet, &c. 

Alas ! a grandee came with gold, 

While I was poor and nameless, too ; 
For wealth her plighted heart she sold, 

And wrote to me a cold adieu. 
And now of hope and home bereft, 

My passion all without avail, 
No treasure in my heart is left 

But withered flowers from Flora Dale. 

Cho. — Sweet, sunny meads of Flora Dale, 

No more with heart so blithe and gay, 
I'll roam with Mary o'er each vale, 
Through all the balmy month of May. 

Baltimore, Md., February, 1878. 



Camp and Hearth. 69 

CLASS SONG. 



Used by the Graduating Class, Harrisburg High Schools, i8jq. 



This joyous hour, assembled here, 
Our hearts are full of gladness ; 
We greet kind friends and patrons dear, 
Without one touch of sadness. 

May blessings fall upon their heads, 
Till, crowned by Faith and Love, 
The Father gently calls them home 
To bowers of bliss above. 

This night, to memory ever dear, 

We stand upon life's portal- 
Launch forth, o'er varied seas to steer, 
To realms of* life immortal. 

May Truth and Honor be our guides, 

Till, crowned by Faith and Love, 
At last the Father calls us home 
To bowers of bliss above. 

To teachers loved we bid adieu; 
Be theirs a crown of glory — 
A fadeless wreath attained by few 
Who shine in song or story. 

May sunbeams shine upon their path 

Till, crowned by Faith and Love, 
The Father gently calls them home 
To bowers of bliss above. 



70 Camp and Hearth. 

CHARADES. 



I. — SUMMERFIELD. 
Summerfield, a celebrated young divine of the early part of the 
present century, was noted for his fervid, fiery eloquence, and his 
power of swaying vast masses, until often thousands were bathed in 
tears or crying to God for mercy. 

'Twas a sweet Sabbath morn in the midst of my first, 

In God's mercy to weary ones given ; 
And the birds from the trees in their praise-carols 
burst 

To the Lord of the earth and the Heaven : 
And the up-rising sun, on the gold-headed grain, 

By the pastures all clothed in rich green, 
And the sweet-smiling corn, refreshed by the rain, 

Glanced brightly each dark leaf between. 

Then they joyfully came — they thronged every side. 

Through the alley-ways green of my second, 
Where the brook murmured down to the fair stream- 
let wide, 

To the love-call that graciously beckoned : 
Thus they joyously came — those rough men of toil — 

Those reapers of earth's golden grain, 
The Heaven-blest sons of a Heaven-blest soil, 

In their search for eternal gain. 

Then the tears rolled down on each sun-bronzed cheek 

At the eloquent words of my whole ; 
And the stout-hearted man as a child grew weak, 

As He painted eternity's scroll. 



Camp and Hearth. 71 

Not, since Jesus had walked on the Judean plain,. 

Had such thunder-bolt tones been ere known, 
As He painted the damned in the writhings of pain, 

Or the joys of the throng round the throne. 

Harrisburg, Pa., January 31, 1878. 



II. — Patrick Henry. 

My first was the patron of Erin, 
The down-trodden gem of the sea ; 

My second, enrobed in proud purple, 
Sweet isle, forced the fetters on thee. 

My whole, in the wilds of the west, 
Adjured the brave to be free, 

With eloquence never possessed 
By mortal of kingly degree. 

January, 1878. 




72 Camp and Hearth. 

THE RETURN OF HEZEKIAH GIVEN. 



Read before the Dauphin County Teachers' Institute, Dece?nber 21, 

1882. 



A half a century has passed at least, 
Since there came slowly wandering from the East, 
An uncouth man in suit of homespun clad, 
Who carried with him all the wealth he had. 

Long-legged was the man and lantern-jawed, 
With scowl on face by which the young were awed : 
An uncouth man and harsh of voice was he, 
With gait as awkward as it well could be. 

Our hero was a son of Yankee-land, 

Who first drew breath near Plymouth's sacred strand- 

In youth the time that others gave to play, 

He gave to books ; and studied day by day 

To deck his mind with flowers of knowledge fair. 
Such was his zeal and such his arduous care, 
That at eighteen he taught the village school, 
A birchen rod the emblem of his rule. 

But soon he seemed to hear a whispered sound, 
" Go ivest, young man, where fortune may be found : 
' Westward the star of empire takes its way ; ' 
Then westward turn your course without delay." 



Camp and Hearth. 73 

He went, perchance his youthful brain was fired 
With dreams of fame to which his soul aspired ; 
His well-conned books were in a kerchief tied ; 
A staff, his company, the sun, his guide. 

He went to York. Thence through the Jerseys taught, 
But failed to find the fortune that he sought : 
As poor, but not as hopeful, as of yore, 
Each year he studied harder than before. 

Westward. At length he reached the Quaker State, 
And fondly hoped that here propitious fate 
Would shower on him unbounded wealth and fame, 
With glory crown his pedagogic name. 

Alas ! what mortal ever passed though life, 

Who, looking back o'er its harassing strife, 

Has not, heart-sickened, breathed the mournful sigh 

At mirage hopes that cheated heart and eye? 

Who ever dreamed of wealth by teaching school, 
That has not lived to own — he was a fool? 
For years our hero wielded well the birch : 
On Sundays, led the singing at the church : 

Found ample food — for thought — in boarding round; 
And often pondered on the food he found. 
The log school-house with clapboard seats supplied, 
Of air, except through broken panes, denied, 

Hummed every winter with the mingled noise 
Of eighty buxom girls and boisterous boys — 
5 



74 Camp and Hearth. 

Fair daughters of the farm and sons of toil- 
The future tillers of the fertile soil. 



The horde each winter barred their master out, 
Lest he his dollars and his cents might hoard ; 

Received their cakes and candies with a shout — 
He ought to treat — because, he paid no board. 

Each quarter, that he drew his scanty pay, 
Saw him with scarce a quarter to his name. 

At length, to all-subduing love a prey, 

He ceased to pray for fortune and for fame. 

Eliza Jane, a farmer's daughter fair, 

By Hezekiah led up learning's hill, 
With her sweet face and wealth of bright, red hair, 

Led him a captive to her own sweet will : 

Half conscious of the conquest she had made, 
The conqueror of the conquered half afraid, 

With his poor heart such fearful pranks she played. 
That he, distracted quite by the sweet maid, 

Made bold, in faltering tones to press his suit, 
Because, that they would suit he was impressed ; 

Of learning's tree sweet was the golden fruit, 
But not so sweet, as if of her possessed. 

The maiden coyly said she feared the change, 
Because, of change all pedagoges did lack ; 



Camp and Hearth. 75 

Nor yet too high could her affections range, 
She ne'er could reach those lips to get a smack. 

Next Monday morning at the hour of nine, 

The urchins gathered at the school-house door ; 

And waited long in an impatient line, 
But never saw their Yankee master more. 

Some said that Hezekiah had gone west 
" To teach the young idea how to shoot :" 

On other minds it firmly was impressed 

That he had shot himself. Such was the fruit 

Of too much "larnin." Others slyly said, 
The master had received a large-sized mitten, 

And then to other lands had swiftly fled, 

Because, he'd no more gumption than a kitten. 

The nine days' wonder died away at last, 
As, soon or late, will wonders die away. 

Two score of years, in rapid flight, had passed, 
When, in the early fall, one pleasant day, 

An aged wanderer with a furrowed face, 

Whose outlines spoke of trouble and of care, 

Came 'long the highway with a lagging pace, 
The zephyrs dallying with his snowy hair : 

Yet, anxious glances from an eye still keen, 

Spoke interest and amazement strangely mixed ; 

His longing looks drank in the busy scene, 
Till by a stately house he stood transfixed. 



76 Camp and Hearth. 

" Just there it stood, if I remember right/ 5 

The old man murmured, " Now, some wealthy man 

Lives there. Alas! I can't forget the night 
I wept at bidding it adieu. I can 

" Recall just how it looked. My gracious me," 
He sudden gasped, as forth there came a score 

Of — ladies: "That can not a school-house be?" 
Still on they came, some eight abreast or more. 

"Beg pardon, Miss, what house be that above?" 

"That, sir, is Slasherdale Academy 
Devoted to the promulgation of 

The noble science of Philosophy." 

"Where is the master?" She was puzzled now. 

" Master ? — There comes Professor Dunderpate : 
Behold his noble form, his classic brow, 

From which the beams of knowledge radiate." 

The old man sought him. "Times have changed," 
said he, 

"Since first I gazed upon this lovely spot; 
No trace of what I loved I now can see, 

The master and his w T ork are both forgot." 

"Not quite forgotten, friend," the other cried, 

And grasped his hand with pressure warm and true : 

" To help }^our pupils on, you always tried, 
And what I have become, I owe to you. 

" Come, see our halls of learning, open wide, 
That all the mount of knowledge may ascend." 



Camp and Hearth. 77 

And, as they sallied onward side by side, 

In them the Past and Present seemed to blend. 

Our nation's Past, replete with victories grand, 
The Present, that presents so much to solve, 

Round which the Future of our native land, 
For weal or woe close-allied, doth resolve. 

With awe admiring, Hezekiah looked 

At boys who spouted Latin, French and Greek ; 

In every art and every science booked, 
With full American supply of — cheek. 

The urchins dressed with most religious care, 
The fairer sex to captivate and please, 

Presented well-developed heads — of hair, 

That, with their fragrance, loaded down the breeze. 

The brightest boy, with tons of knowledge clogged, 
And head majestic reared toward the stars, 

Shows forth how densely mind can be befogged 
By dwelling on the fogs of distant Mars. 

Finance and wealth of nations is the theme, 

On which a white-haired, girl-browed youth dilates ; 

Perhaps to him, in after life, 'twill seem, 

His wealth has met a cyclone from the fates. 

A sad-eyed lad relates, in mournful style, 

The style of writing for heroic verse ; 
In words obscure, as sources of the Nile, 

Insists that speakers be concise and terse. 



78 Camp and Hearth. 

Still on the old man went from class to class, 
And met Professors, numbering full a score ; 

He softly murmured to himself : " Alas ! 

Where are the teachers, that we had of yore ?" 

"We're all Professors now," said Dunderpate; 

"School-teacher does not sound so fine or grand; 
Each stripling, armed with a certificate, 

Augments by one, Professors in the land. 



" We do not teach ; for that is not refined : 
We do not teach; we polish up the mind." 
"And is the boot-black, when he gives a shine, 
A full Professor in the polish line? 

" Or, when the barber shaves you every week, 
Is he Professor of the art of cheek?" 
"Why, yes," said Dunderpate, "they're artists all, 
And we have artists, too, that sling a ball : 

" Professors varied : some, on cloth of green, 
Manipulating ivory balls are seen : 
Some, on the diamond, learn to strike a foul, 
Or a hot ball that makes the fielders howl. 

"Then we have learned Professors of the feet, 
Whose feat it is, to sound of music sweet, 
To teach young men and maidens how to prance 
Around the figures of the mazy dance. 



Camp and Hearth. 79 

" Pedal Professors also cut your corns ; 
Bovine Professors interview the horns 
Of cattle, when afflicted with disease ; 
We have Professors for each art you please." 

Said Hezekiah : "Do the boys still play?" 
" No ; they have recreation every day : 
Not boys, but students call them, if you please ; 
Come, you shall see their dignity and ease 

u Of manners." Forth they came in stately line, 
With cloth and linen both surpassing fine. 
One milk-faced Zeno, leader of the van, 
In ponderous language, to the following clan, 

Tells of responsibility in man 

To gain the highest pinnacle he can ; 

Caresses his incipient mustache, 

Resolved, that in the world he'll cut a dash. 

Nor less progressive are the female classes, 
Young ladies all, instead of bonrrie lasses. 
Yet all of them know how to nicely cook — 
At least they've studied how — out of a book. 

One sweet young lady, with a wealth of curls, 
Expatiates on the destiny of girls — 
Their glorious mission in the fields of life : 
(Her mission is to be a huckster's wife.) 

In contempletion wrapt, one pensive miss, 

From day-dreams roused to parse the subject — " bliss," 



80 Camp and Hearth. 

Evinced her mind's development in this — - 
"'Tis logical equivalent of — kiss." 

One gushing miss doted on nature's charms, 
On birds, and flowers, and # highly-cultured farms; 
They were just too entrancing, utter sweet, 
Quite too superbly lovely, fresh and neat : 

How utterly exquisite it would be, 

Just too magnificently grand, if she 

Might live forever there a life of love, 

With skies just quite too gorgeous sweet above. 

Perhaps in future she will get her fill 
Of grandeur — working in a cotton mill. 
The Sappho of the class, who weaves in rhyme 
The coming of a long-expected time, 

(She means the time when she will have a beau,) 
Raves in Iambi of unequal flow, 
About the glories of the " coming man " — 
(We hope that he'll support her— if he can.) 

The old man faltered: "Do they sew and bake? " 
"No, sir, that, too much precious time would take; 
And, as for baking, sir, they're too well bred; 
And, as for sewing, why — they paint instead." 

Yes, Hezekiah was aware they did — 
Such marks of painting scarcely could be hid. 
The old man heaved a heavy, heart-felt sigh ; 
" I'd like to see a teacher ere I die. 



Camp and Hearth. 81 

" Professors are a peg ahead of me, 
And 'halls of laming ' don't with me agree." 
The master gasped and fainted quite away, 
The dose had been too great for one short day. 

With care they placed him on a cozy bed, 
With pillows propped the dying wanderer's head. 
"Run for a doctor," thundered Dunderpate. 
"No, no," the patient gasped, "too late, too late. 

" My peace is made. I hear the Master call. 

I die, as I have lived, with love for all. 

Perhaps sweet memories round my heart entwined, 

Though lost on earth, in Heaven I may find. 

" No mortal's left to shed a tear for me, 
When from this world of sorrow I am free ; 
But you, kind friends, receive the last adieu 
Of one, that to his God was always true. 

" I die in peace : seek not to keep me here, 
For then I might be tortured with the fear, 
That, ere I reached the shining courts of Heaven, 
I'd hear — 'Professor Hezekiah Given.'" 



@^d[g3ilJ!fc5a>g) 



82 Camp and Hearth. 

A FRAGMENT. 



The leaden days are passing by 

On swift and sombre pinions ; 
Wild Winter waves his weird-like wand 

To call his gloomy minions 
From out his ice-bound northern home : 

The days are dark and dreary — 
They answer to my aching heart, 

That keeps its vigil weary, 
Through all the dark, tempestuous day, 
Through all the wild and wintry day, 

And watches, dear, thy coming. 

Penna. College, 1861. 



THE ANGEL OF THE MIND. 



Dedicated to Rebecca W., of Gettysburg. 



The world is mixed with many scenes 

Of parrying pleasure and pain ; 
While sometime seem both love and care 

To gnaw in the wearied brain. 
Sometime I dream, as billow-tossed 

I toil in the fevered strife, 
That both labor and love are the gauntlet and glove 

Of an unsubstantial life. 

That labors the febrile grasp for fame, 
Which wears out body and soul ; 



Camp and Hearth, 83 

While love's the rust of ideal minds — 

Humanity's poisoning bowl. 
Then aches my brain and whirls again 

To fathom the misty unknown, 
That reaching the shore, where Eternity's door, 

May be passed by the spirit alone, 

Perchance the future will unfold 

The pleasure without the pain, 
Where parried strokes of a world of care 

Fire not the aching brain. 
Whene'er such musing thoughts arise, 

And the world looks darker to me ; 
When beams no sign of a happier time 

Midst the gyves of our misery — 

Blends with these dreams a soothing calm, 

(For a face is mirrored to me,) 
'Twas seen — perchance in dreams — perhaps 

In throngs — but it points to thee, 
Alike at morn or starry night 

That face is flitting along, 
Whilst the light of that eye, like the bow of the sky, 

Breathes sunshine and gladness and song. 

Sometime it seems, in pinioned dreams, 

That the smile of that mythic face, 
That helps to calm both joy and pain, 

In time's bewildering race — 
That glance — that gleam of ideal good, 

More sweet than a Houri's trance — 
Has a semblance to thee ; but, pray, pardon me, 

I'm dreaming again, perchance. 

Pennsylvania College, 18G1. 



84 Camp and Hearth. 

SIT LUX. 



There was a time, when time began, 

That night and darkness ruled the world : 
Then spake the Voice that formed the plan, 
"Sit Lux: " Light's banner was unfurled; 
Creation's beauties teemed around, 
And every beauteous flower was found 
Upspringing from the darksome ground, 
Unfolding to that joyous sound : 
"Sit Lux." 

E'er since in all the wondrous plan 

Of the Ruler of Creation, 
Shine links of light twixt God and man — 
Steps of a fair gradation : 

Above the world's soul-darkling storms — 
The shocks of war— the shrill alarms, 
To calm the heart come fairy forms, 
Called by those words of endless charms : 
"Sit Lux." 

Sometimes the world is very dark, 

The future stern and dreary : 
On stormy sea, in fragile bark, 
Both Hope and Faith are weary : 

Above the future and the past, 
And forms of crime that weirdly cast 
A terror on our souls aghast, 
We know shall breathe those words at last: 
"Sit Lux." 

Chambersburg, I*a., 18G9. 



Camp and Hearth. 85 

JUDEA— A SABBATH MEDITATION. 



O, land of Judea, each true heart's devotion, 

Midst the cares of the world and the jarrings of time, 
Will sometime be turned in wrapt contemplation, 
Will muse of the scenes in that glorious clime, 
Where the great and the good of the ages have trod, 
And incessantly poured on the altars of God, 
On hill-top and valley, that grateful libation — 
A penitent prayer — man's true adoration. 

In day-dreams we muse of those darkly blue waters, 
The plains, mounts and rills of thy beautiful land, 
Where Jesus preached life to Israel's daughters, 

(Though all is now marred by the conqueror's hand.) 
Yet 'tis sweet to remember how ages before, 
O'er the same holy land from mountain to shore, 
Went forth those apostles of truth to the world, 
Upholding the banner that God had unfurled. 

Yet here in our eagle-found home of the west, 

Remote from thy landscape of peace and of love, 
Afar thy dark waters and mountains' blue crest, 
We're hearing forever those words from above : 
We're chanting our praise in thy world-during psalms, 
Whose numbers flow sweetly as zephyrs through palms ; 
With thy bards, our hearts glow in warm aspiration 
To gaze on the glories of their contemplation. 

Gettysburg, 18G7. 



86 Camp and Hearth. 

THE IDEAL QUEEN. 



Somewhere in the realms of this beautiful earth 
Is the Eden-like home of the soul's better birth, 
A land unlocated, unmeasured, unknown, 
Save by longings impulsive, when wandering alone 
O'er the deserts of life, there arises to view 
Sweet arbors away, arched by measureless blue ; 
Whilst oft and again, from chambers unseen, 
Rings an anthem of love for the beautiful Queen — 
For the soul's better home and its beautiful Queen. 

Some walk all aweary not viewing this land, 
With eyes ever fixed on earth's glittering sand : 
Some poor, scorned and spurned, with sorrow their 

master, 
With earth's evil assailing still faster and faster, 
For aye have found rest in this home of the soul, 
Where symphonies grand unceasingly roll, 
Where are flowers that are hemmed with the brightest 

of green, 
That joyously bud for the beautiful Queen — 

For each pure heart's ideal of that beautiful Queen. 

This Eden-gemmed home of affection and thought, 
Where love is immortal and truth is unbought, 
May blossem for all on this beautiful earth 
With the fragrance of love and the merit of worth : 
Its airs are the breathings of perfumes and balms, 
Its matinal chant is soft, orient psalms, 



Camp and Hearth. 87 

Its scenery decked with the varying sheen 
Of the rainbow-bright dress of the beautiful Queen — 
Of each true heart's ideal of that beautiful Queen. 

1867. 



'NEATH THE WALNUT TREE. 



Many are the months I've squandered, 
Since we parted 'neath the hill ; 

And in foreign lands I've wandered, 
Laughed at joy and smiled on ill. 

But, to-day, again I've been 

To that lone, sequestered spot — 

To our walnut where were seen 
Happy hours that you've forgot. 

'Twas a weird, fantastic vision 

That I saw you by my side, 
And to words of Love's impassion 

Soft and sweet your tones replied ; 

'Twas a wild, unearthly dreaming, 
For the tones were false as thee ; 

And the charm was only seeming, 

That once glanced those smiles on me. 

Don't you mind the gorgeous sunset, 
Don't you mind the woods of flame, 

When in autumn last we met, 

When you gently lisped my name : 



Camp and Hearth. 

"Clarence, though the world deceive you, 
Friends be fickle, false, untrue, 

I can never — never leave you, 
I will still be more than true." 

False the words that there were spoken, 
False the heart from whence they came, 

False the trust so rudely broken, 
That I placed in Honor's name. 

Well, the past has gone forever ; 

Sighs or tears were but in vain ; 
Life's a rapid, ghastly river, 

And life's links a rusty chain. 

Men have called me coldly callous, 
When I scoffed at truth and love ; 

Ah ! such draughts in memory' ] s chalice 
Can all hope and trust remove. 







THE HEARTH-SIDE. 



*+ 



^—4^- 



L_SONG OF THE SAILOR'S BRIDE. 



0, come to me ! 0. come to me ! 

My Willie come to me, 
And venture not again to cross 

The dark, tempestuous sea. 

I weep through all the dreary hours 

When thou art far away, 
And sweeps upon the trackless sea 

The storm-god's angry sway. 

I think of then when night has spread 
Its dark, pavilioned gloom ; 

And fear that ere the morning rise 
Thou'lt find an ocean tomb — 

I think of thee when morning dawns 

Upon a calm, blue sea, 
And I am gazing out upon 

The silver-crested lea — 

I think of thee when Luna rides 

Upon a tranquil sky — 
I think of thee when torrents pour 

And storm-clouds sweep on high — 

Then come to me; 0, come to me ! 

My Willie come to me ; 
Nor venture forth again to cross 

The dark, tempestuous sea. 

Pennsylvania College, L860. 



92 Camp and Hearth. 

II.— AN AUTUMN PENCILLING. 



Do you remember, Minnie, 

Our parting from each other, 
Upon the hillside, Minnie, 

We used to roam together. 

• 

The leaves are red and russet, 
The woods one golden flame, 

Whilst ripples by the hillside 
The pebbled, purling stream : 

That gorgeous fairy, autumn, 

Has cast its purpling hues, 
Where peeps the setting sun 

Through amber-burnished trees. 

The snow-enveloped cloudlets, 

That flit in upper air, 
See in the brook's still waters 

Their faces, frail and fair, 

Commingled with the oak trees 

That stand upon its bank, 
Whose shadows lave their crimson heads 

Within its cooling tank. 



$&(&W&)jfai 



Camp and Hearth. 9S 

III.— THE TRACINGS OF MEMORY. 



There is a time when memory glides 

To visions of the past, 
And bears from Heaven golden dreams 

Too beautiful to last : 

But, whilst this witching spell dispels; 

The ruder blasts of sorrow, 
Thought speeds his wings to those we Iove 7 

Swift as the shafted arrow. 

Then, when this dreaming hour has come, 

My Cousin Kate, to me, 
A prayer is wafted on the wings 

Of angel thought for thee ; 

That love and beauty evermore 
May guard thy onward way ; 

On thee may shine, with warming light, 
True Friendship's sweetest ray. 

Pennsylvania College, 1861. 



IV.— THE REALM OF THOUGHT. 



Know ye the fair land where ivy is twining 

With circlets of laurel and bay, 
Where there's no weeping, or sorrow, or pining, 

But light and balm-zephyred day : 



94 Camp and Hearth. 

Where the fragrance of flowers is forevermore welling 

Through the nebulous depths of air ; 
And myriad voices in chorus are swelling, 

Like the voices of angels fair : 

Where gold-pinioned songsters mount the blue sky 

And warble forevermore ; 
Where the azure-dyed billows sweep lovingly by 

And kiss the jewel-clad shore : 

Where the zephyrs float o'er the moss-covered glens, 

Then sing in the palm-covered plain ; 
Where Scotia's mountains and chasms and fens 

Combine with the Orient's main. 

Tis the fair, fleeting land of vision and thought, 

Surcharged with loveliest dreams ; 
Where the eye, and the mind, and the heart are 
caught 

With more than Elysian beams. 

I860. 



V.— SPEAK GENTLY. 



Speak gently to the aged man 
Whose locks are whitening fast, 

Whose drooping form is bending low 
Before Azrael's blast : 

He has not long to tarry here, 
He soon will haste away ; 



Camp and Hearth. 95 

Then gently soothe each weary hour, 
Each slow-revolving day. 

Speak gently to your mother, boy, 
Bowed down with work and care ; 

Nor ever cause her to roll forth 
The swift and bitter tear. 

Speak gently to the merry youth, 

In spring's love-tinted bowers ; 
There's pain enough reserved for him 

In future, rolling years. 

Gettysburg, Pa., April 21, 1860. 



VI.— QUEEN OF ALL HEARTS.— A Health. 



A health to her the beautiful, 

A health to her the true ; 
We always long to meet her smile, 

But not to say adieu. 

A health to thee, Cecelia, fair, 

And may thy life be free 
From sorrow, as are moon-kissed waves 

Upon a palm-clad lea, 

That leap upon the pearly shore 

And dance upon the sea, 
And bound from out their coral caves 

To kiss the cocoa tree. 



96 Camp and Hearth. 

VII— A PORTRAITURE. 



Sweet roaming in the balmy breeze, beside the danc- 
ing tide, 

I first beheld — one summer eve, my beautiful, my bride : 

Her festooned locks of silken curls were flung around 
a face, 

Whose joyous smile bespoke no care nor sorrow's 
dimming trace. 

Her lips with tints of ruby pearl and eyes of azure 

blue 
Fixed my bewildered gaze on her, yet why I scarcely 

knew; 
The silver cadence of her tones fell softer on the ear 
Than sighing zephyrs on the plain or Iris' sun-kissed 

tear. 

The warbling streams that ripple by in Maia's flowery 
hours, 

Or nymph-like brooks in Cydnus thrown from mount- 
ain-cradled bowers, 

Chant not so sweetly on their course or beam so soft 
and bright 

As does the music of her voice and beams her eye 
with light. 



» ^» ^ fe) (g)(S) Gp cs ^ c — ♦ 

HEART THROBS. 

„ ^ ^ o 6)g> <?), ., ^ «" -—:« 



I.— THE SUICIDE. 



She stood a moment 'mid the fragrant flowers 

That wafted dewy perfumes from their breasts 

And angel-smiles, beneath the gladsome sun. 

She turned. One tiny foot, not quite uplifted, 

In weary indecision paused near by 

The moss-bourM walk from which her willing feet 

Were held a time restrained, by wavering mind. 

A smile that welled from out her depth of soul — 

A smile serene as breeze of orange land, 

Yet tinged with something of a deep, fixed gloom, 

Played on her features. All beside was still 

And motionless as Naiad cut from out 

The whitest crag of Paros' marble coast. 

She kissed one bright, fresh cup of shining dew, 

And zephyrs, mild as Eden, kissed her cheek, 

Bidding her tarry and enjoy with them 

A world replete with beauty and with grace. 

" No, no," she sweetly, sadly said in tones 

That cast a thin, half-unseen veil of gloom 

Across the petals of the Sharon rose. 

Then pressed her footsteps on the pebbled path — 

Then passed her lithe form through the swinging gate, 

And she was gone — to come — no more — no more: 

But where a deep, clear stream forever held 

It secrets from the sighing mind, she paused 

A moment — plunged — and sank the tide beneath. 

She found the world inanimate — a world 

That teemed with wealth of pure and sinless love; 



100 Camp and Hearth. 

The world of sentient ones, a world of hate. 
There let her rest, her tomb that deep lagoon. 
Judge not too harshly her who loved so well. 

July 19, 1862. 



II.— THE STRANGER'S GRAVE. 



They laid him down in a cold, dark grave, 
Around its side the rushes wave ; 
They marked the tomb with nameless stone, 
And left him there to sleep alone. 

No teardrop fell on the clammy ground, 
No rosebush marked the lonely mound, 
No token reared by loving hand — 
For he died far off in a foreign land. 

The thistle wild, with bonnet blue, 

Drinks o'er his grave the falling dew ; 

And the music trilled from the wild-bird's throat 

Is the stranger's only requiem note. 

Ah ! still and pulseless there beneath, 
With the wild vine twining his only wreath, 
Is the one who died far off from home, 
Who sleeps unhonored and unknown. 

There were friends that sighed on a distant shore, 
And long they looked but he came no more ; 
And they dreamed and started in their home, 
In hope that the loved and lost would come. 



Camp and Hearth. 101 

But they never knew how he calmly slept, 
And the trailing vine o'er his tomb-stone crept. 
They met — not on earth, but the sun-lit shore 
Of the better land, where he went before. 

June, 1860. 



HI.— THE PIRATE'S DEATH. 



Upon the flinty, burning sand, 

The dreaded pirate lay ; 
His ship was sunk 'neath bloody waves, 

Within a distant bay. 

His heart, late full of haughtiness, 
Was crushed unto the ground : 

He sighed and looked — a desert waste 
Was spread for miles around. 

Whilst here and there, in clustering spots, 
Some half-scorched verdure sprang. 

But, hark! what dreadful cry is that 
Which o'er the desert rang ? 

It is the cry for blood and life 

That smote upon his ear ; 
It is the shout of deadly foes 

That rises shrill and clear. 

He starts, he shudders and turns pale ; 
" God! " he cries, "the sea— 



102 Camp and Hearth. 

Place me upon my good ship's deck 
To roam the ocean free." 

But heaven, for him, was made of brass: 
Useless was prayer or moan ; 

For there, upon the desert sand, 
The pirate died alone. 

Pennsylvania College, 1860. 



IV.— THE DESERTED. 



■" He will not come, he will not come ;" 
She sighed in plaintive strain : 

" He will not come, he will not come, 
And I have looked in vain. 

" My spirit seems to cleave the air 
O'er leagues of sea and land, 

O'er city, village, peasant's cot, 
And wastes of desert sand. 

" I see far off an Orient bower, 

Beyond the rolling sea, 
Where murmur soft and fairy winds, 

Beneath the wide palm-tree. 

" I see him press another hand, 

Another eye has charmed : 
But, see, he shudders at her touch, 

He starts, he is alarmed. 



Camp and Hearth. 103 

" Perchance some memory has touched 

His false and icy heart, 
Of her he fondly swore to love, 

When last they met to part. 

" Heaven ! let thy vengeance smite : 

Remorse his endless bride — 
No pity knows this callous heart, 

Where love and hope have died." 

Gettysburg, Pa., 1859. 



V.— THE SLEIGH-RIDE. 



The moon above — the clear, cold moon, 
The sparkling snow around, 

The sleigh-bells ring a merry tune 
And through the pines resound. 

Oh ! what a pace ! I know it thrills 

The one who sits beside. 
Away we glide o'er vales and hills 

For a merry, merry ride. 



The sleigh-bells chime a merrier tune : 
Her soft, fair hand in mine ; 

My hopes are heard by the silent moon, 
That smiles on those eyes of thine. 

Oh ! happy hour, oh ! happy bells, 
That rang for that merrv ride : 



104 Camp and Hearth. 

Through the darkling pines their music swells ; 
" Next spring she'll be a bride." 

Perchance we'll talk in after years, 
When we've wandered far together 

Through scenes of joy, with some of tears, 
Of a sleigh-ride o'er this heather. — 

A sleigh-ride in the days lang syne, 

Beneath the glorious moon, 
When first I won this heart of thine, 

To the sleigh-bell's ringing tune. 

York Sulphur Springs, January, 1863. 



VI.— THE MAIDEN'S COMPLAINT. 



Still sitting sad and dreary, 
Lone by my cottage door; 

With heart all worn and weary, 
For he will come no more. 

In other lands he's roaming, 
Far — far away from me, 

Beyond the billows' foaming, 
Beyond the raging sea. 

Ah ! well I mind our parting, 
So tender and so sad ; 

When, all at once upstarting, 
He bade my heart be glad : 



Camp and Hearth. 105 



He vowed he'd love me ever, 
Although far o'er the sea ; 

That he'd forget me never. 
And soon come back to me. 

I trusted to his promise, 

I thought him kind and true ; 

But, why this sudden dimness, 
That's coming o'er my view ? 

It is the tear outgushing, 
The voice of voiceless grief; 

And memories round me rushing 
Bear to me no relief, 

While sitting sad and dreary, 
Lone by my cottage door, 

With heart all worn and weary 
For one that comes no more. 

Gettysburg, March 10, 1860. 



VII.— THE ORPHAN BOY'S LAMENT. 



Cold, cold the night-winds rudely blow, 
And high the snow-drift piles ; 

And I have wandered all alone 
O'er many weary miles. 

No friends have I on earth's cold shore, 
My friends are all in Heaven ; 

7 



106 Camp and Hearth. 

And though my lot on earth is sad, 
That home to me is given, 

Where snow-drifts never sweep along, 
And myriads there are singing, 

Within those portals of the blest, 
With harps melodious ringing. 

But I am cold, so very cold ; 

As still I wander here, 
With never a friend mid surging crowds — 

The prey of want and fear. 

No warmth, no light, no friends on earth, 

How sad my lonely lot ! 
Yet I possess a mansion bright, 

That Jesus' love hath bought. 



The morning shone on tender frame, 
All cold, and stiff, and still : 

His form was laid in pauper's grave ; 
He was done with earthly ill. 

His soul had gone to homes of light, 
To join his mother again; 

For angels led the upward flight, 
Away from a world of pain. 

Pennsylvania College, 1859. 



Camp and Hearth. 107 

VIII.— THE WARNING. 



We sat in the virgin starlight, 

'Neath the blush of purpling skies ; 

We watched the glow of Venus - 
And Orion's changeless ties. 

There were cool. and balmy zephyrs 
To soothe the day-heated brain; 

A sweet and solemn silence, 
That arrested the pulse of pain. 

But soon that crystal starlight 
Was swept from the arching sky, 

And a dome of inky darkness 
Oppressed the vault on high : 

There came a radiant flashing 
That glittered from pole to pole, 

And there followed it a blackness 
That chilled the pensive soul. 

'Twas a warning, then unheeded, 
That I bitterly think of now, 

As the chilling death-dew gathers 
On a fair and marble brow. 



108 Camp and Hearth. 

IX.— IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG. 



Beneath a burning southern sun, 

By Appomattox river, 
Three days of death at length were done, 

To some a furlough forever : 
Our flags were sadly torn with shot, 

Our columns thinned with shelling ; 
For battle grim our banners sought, 
When first with blood that land was bought, 
O'er which our noble army fought, 

With valor Greece excelling, 
In front of Petersburg. 

At length the darkling night came down 

To hush the sullen roar. 
Above, the angry heavens frown ; 

Aloft, our flag doth soar — 
That glorious flag whose lovely stars 

Have shown on every nation. 
In front, there waved rebellion's bars, 
To damp our hopes and chill our cheers — 
Dire prophet oft of widows' tears 

And fireside desolation, 

In front of Petersburg. 

Eight thousand on that gory field, 

Dead mingled with the dying, 
Who fought their country's flag to shield, 

In agony were lying : 



Camp and Hearth. 109 

The blooming boy with beardless cheek, 

Whose life death quickly quenches ; 
The stalwart man, so childlike weak ; 
And he, whose hoary locks bespeak 
The aged sire, serene and meek, 

Were bleeding in the trenches, 
In front of Petersburg. 

Those sultry days of sunny June 

Pond hearts will long remember, 
Whose loves, beneath night's clouded moon, 

Groaned out life's flickering ember. 
A youth -was there with face as fair 

As faun of mythic story ; 
So young, and yet no groan to bear 
The wound which floods his hazel hair, 
And pours its red libation there, 

To native land and glory, 

In front of Petersburg. 

Then passed the sting of death away : 

His senses all were going; 
And turned the night to fairy day, 

With love and beauty glowing. 
And lo ! his mother bathes his brow 

In streamlets softly flowing, 
His sister stands beside him now, 
She speaks in cadence soft and low, 
Whilst forms of Heaven around him glow, 

And zephyrs sweet are blowing, 
In front of Petersburg. 

1865. 



110 Camp and Hearth. 

X.— THE MOUNTAIN HOME. 



Up in those bonnie braes of green, 
That shine with silver-burnished sheen, 
I fondly love to dwell alone, 
And sigh by world of grief and moan. 

The water ripples down the glen, 
Through banks of fern, through silent fen ; 
Or leaps from out its mountain home 
With babbling sound and mimic foam. 

There, floats upon the evening gale 
The tiny insect's plaintive wail; 
There, sails the thistle's fluttering down 
Before the storm's sky-blackening frown. 

Sometimes the lurid tempests speak 
From rock to rock and peak to peak ; 
Again, 'tis calm and still below 
As golden Tempe's quivered flow. 



XL — Meade, Seward, Greeley. 



The angel of death, dark-brooding, has hovered 
Above us. At the noblest, his arrows were cast. 

With heads bowed in sorrow and lowly uncovered, 
We follow the funeral train, solemn and vast, 

Of a nation in mourning for heroes sublime — 
The pride and the stars of our beautiful land, 



Camp and Hearth. Ill 

Whose names, with a glory, shall live to all time — 
A trio immortal — a nation-loved band. 

We mourn for our Seward — a statesman transcend- 
ent, 
Whose fame shall beam brightly with his country's 
entwined : 
Our tear-tributes flow, uncontrolled and abundant, 
For the hero with Gettysburg's glory combined, 
Together immortal to nethermost ages. 

Calm — calm be the slumbers of George Gordon 
Meade. 
We are lacking the maxims of one of our sages, 
Horace Greeley, beloved in this land of the freed. 

November, 1872. 



XIL— INFELIX. 



" Fill high to the golden future, 

Fill high to the trophies of war ; 
Let the echo-notes of our triumph 

Be heard through lands afar : " 
So sang, and who can blame? 
So rang, with wild acclaim, 

A thousand throats, and a hundred notes 
From drum and fife and cannon. 

From the high up solemn belfry, 

The partner of moss and time, 
Rang merrier notes than e're 

Had pealed for a wedding chime : 



112 Camp and Heakth. 

Our arms had been victorious, 

And flashed the news, most glorious, 

That loyal men had triumphed then, 
Midst drum and fife and cannon. 

All alone in her speechless sorrow, 
The tear-drops falling like rain ; 
All alone, with no one nigh her, 

To calm that fevered brain : 
Alone forever and aye, 
The bride of a year and a day, 

Her voiceless woe no joy can know 
From drum or fife or cannon. 

Her eyes were swollen and red, 

Her head was throbbing with pain, 
Her heart was sore with a grief 
She had no power to restrain, 
As again and again she read : 
" McAUen— First Sergeant— dead." 

And cursed for life by that widowed wife 
Was drum and fife and cannon. 

1863. 



3€ 



Camp and Hearth. 113 

THE INDIAN WARRIOR'S LAST SONG 



The wood is dyed with varied hue 

Of olive, blent with azure blue 

Of crescent sky that, bending low, 

Has kissed the burnished autumn's glow ; 

And far beyond, the dark, blue top 
Of Tuscarora's mountains prop 
The wide extended sheet of sky, 
Where snow-winged cloudlets swiftly fly. 

The falling leaf has spread adown, 
Upon the earth in red and brown, 
A carpet of its own wild wealth ; 
Thereon, with steps of springing stealth, 
An Indian hunter bounds along, 
Unconscious of the blackbird's song ; 
Its melody falls cold and drear 
Upon his once retentive ear. 

His memory is with the past, 
Before the pale-faced warrior cast 
A cloud of gloom upon his race — 
Had seized the red-man's hunting place, 
And cried : " These acres are my own, 
These woods belong to me alone, 
Towards the west now turn your face 
Where dwell a fierce and hostile race." 

A nameless horror racked his brain, 
A struggle with heart-gnawing pain : 



114 Camp and Hearth. 

"0, for the battle-cry again 

To ring throughout this fertile plain, 

To see the white man's wigwam burn, 

To see his face still paler turn. 

As rings the dreadful shout for blood, 

From mount to mount and wood to wood ; 

As shrieks his scalped and bleeding squaw, 
And turns his proud and fierce huzza 
To plaintive cries of phrenzied woe 
To see, beneath the red-man's blow, 
His children's life-blood freely flow. 
Ah ! that would pay for years of shame, 
Without a tribe, without a name, 
Could I again behold him die 
Beneath our nation's arching sky. 

"But ah! my warriors, where are ye? 
Ye sleep beneath the greenwood tree ; 
The grass o'ergrows each silent grave : 
Launched on the rapid, tideless wave, 
You've reached the happy hunting land, 
Where we, the Spirit's favored band, 
Shall bend forever more the bow 
And safely conquer every foe. 
Too long I linger here below ; 
I come, I come, ye warrior braves, 
I die upon your grass-grown graves." 



§*^^<g)p^G> 



Camp and Hearth. 115 

THE KING OF THE TRITONS. 



I would not reign on the pigmy land, 
For mine is a realm of vast command ; 
I rule o'er the fairies of the lea, 
And creatures bright of the deep, blue sea ; 

Where the sanded floor is flecked with pearl, 
And around my throne the sea weeds curl. 
Here never foaming waves are driven, 
When frowns above an angry heaven. 

Through the twilight dim and the coral grove 
The Naiads sport and mermaids rove ; 
And all is pleasure and peace below 
As over the waves the tempests go. 



THE STORM-KING. 



Rouse, sailor, from thy dreams of home, 

The dreaded king of storm 
Has veiled in pall of ebon night 

His gaunt and ghastly form : 

His myriad, demon satellites 

Are shrieking o'er the wave, 
To urge the sea-tossed mariner 

To their depths of coral grave. 



116 Camp and Hearth. 

The foam is white on tossing waves 

That herald his advance ; 
And countless forms from ocean's breast 

Wheel in the storm-ghoul's dance. 

While thus he sweeps a giant path, 
And hides the orb of day; 

And ploughs upon the trackless deep 
His keen and cruel way, 

He asks no rest, he seeks no ease 
From tempest and from strife ; 

But sweeps the ocean fierce and free 
In his search for human life. 



FROM TYRANT TO TYRANT. 



Behold on sweet Italia's plain, 
Where waving fields of ripening grain 

And Hadria's luscious vine, 
Are mingled in the fairy view 
With summer's green and golden hue 

And scenery divine, 

The curse — the bloody scourge of war, 
Whilst like a red and fiery star, 

O'er vales where Virgil sang, 
Napoleon's bannered flag is borne ; 
And echoes on the breath of morn 

The trumpet's pealing twang. 



Camp and Hearth. 117 

" Italian liberty," the cry ; 

As o'er the Lombard plains there fly 

The walls of serried steel : 
Alas ! what else could they expect 
From him who rose on Freedom's wreck 

Than heavier chains to feel. 

Rear, tyrant, high thy gilded thrones, 
Supported by the bleaching bones 

Of Freedom's brave defenders ; 
Yet, know that, in an age of storm, 
There yet shall rise from Freedom's form 

A thousand dread avengers. 

That then shall cease the reign of might, 
That long has triumphed over right. 

God grant to haste the day, 
When tyrants on their thrones shall shake, 
And tyrannies shall fall and quake, 

And Freedom bear the sway. 

Pennsylvania College, October, 1859. 






•_• (diss • • 



^ 



-»^fegMsLe^ 



•^ 



LEGENDS OF GETTYSBURG. 



Dedicated to Williain Reynolds Eyster, of Kansas. 

1887. 



"fc" 



L— "UNDER THE OAKS OF ROCK CREEK." 



Culp's Hill : 1853—1863—1883. 



Under the oaks of Rock Creek, 

Two blithesome boys were straying, 
And by each loaded shell-bark tree 

Their laggard steps delaying : 
Above, the rock-strewn hill-top towered, 

In peaceful silence dreaming ; 
And through the autumn-colored woods 

A mellow light was streaming. 

Under the oaks of Rock Creek — 

Five years have passed away ; 
Again, through gorgeous tree-tops, 

Shone autumn's placid ray. 
The one is there to manhood grown, 

"Lenore" is by his side; 
For both had loved one maiden fair, 

But she'll be the Southron's bride. 

Under the oaks of Rock Creek, 

Again five years have passed : 
Along the tiny, sluggish stream 

Ten thousand men are massed ; 
Grim Ewell rode the lines along 

Of veterans clad in gray, 
And 'gainst the frowning, rocky peak 

The charging masses sway. 



122 Camp and Hearth. 

Under the oaks of Rock Creek 

Flashed miles of sheeted flame ; 
Right at the works a captain fell 

Before the deadly aim 
Of one, who wore the Federal blue, 

In death the dead beside ; 
From out the gaping bullet wound 

Danced quick life's ebbing tide. 

Under the oaks of Rock Creek, 

. In trenches long and deep, 
The swollen corses of the gray 

Are laid in dreamless sleep. 
" With tears by boyhood's memories stirred, 

In death a foe no more, 
I place thee 'neath the oaks where erst 

You won your wife ' Lenore.' " 

Under the oaks of Rock Creek, 

When twenty years had fled, 
A woman walked, with pensive step, 

Those acres of the dead. 
Dead are the giant oak trees, 

Life shot from every pore ; 
And they are crumbling into dust 

Like the heart of the lone " Lenore." 



Camp and Hearth. 123 

II.— BROWN'S BATTERY B. 



Little Rhode Island was conspicuous in the Army of the Potomac 
for the number and efficiency of its batteries of artillery. Five of 
them participated in the Gettysburg battle : Arnold's battery A, T. 
Fred. Brown's battery B, Walterman's battery C, Randolph's battery 
E, and Adams' battery G. Brown's battery was in the hottest of 
the fight of July 2d on the Emmettsburg road, some of the guns 
being captured, but afterwards retaken. On the next day it was 
posted at ''The High-water Mark of the Rebellion," immedi- 
ately in rear of the " umbrella clump of trees," the objective point 
of Pickett's charge. In the terrific cannonading which preceded 
that assault the battery was almost annihilated. The gallant Fred- 
Brown was mortally wounded, twenty- seven of the officers or men 
were killed or wounded, and nearly every horse killed. It was in 
this battery, during this cannonading, that, just as a load had been 
inserted in one of the guns and was being rammed down, a rebel 
cannon-ball entered the muzzle, killing or disabling the men who 
were serving the piece, and remained permanently fixed there. The 
gun thus strangely loaded is carefully preserved in Rhode Island as 
one of their most precious war relics. 

Around the clump, world-storied spot — 

Rebellion's highest wave, 
Where Webb, and Hall, and Harrow fought, 

And dug secession's grave, 
Stand thickly-clustered, granite piles, 

But none more dear to me, 
O'er all those history-breathing miles, 

Than that of battery B. 

A humble, modest shaft, 'tis true, 
But marks where heroes stood, 
No braver ever wore the blue, 



124 Camp and Hearth. 

Or poured life's precious flood. 
Hosannas raise and thanks to God, 

Who kept our nation free ; 
And, 'mongst the men who drenched this sod, 

Remember battery B. 

Two days they faced the sulphurous wave 

Of grape and shot and shell ; 
Where Humphreys' muskets answer gave 

To the Georgian battle yell ; 
Where Pickett's men with valor fought, 

In hopes of victory, 
But fell in swaths beneath the shot 

From gallant battery B. 

Above the deadliest carnage rose 

Brown's words of stern command, 
Until he fell in mortal throes, 

Fighting to save our land ; 
And though of all Rhode Island's sons, 

Remained not one in three, 
Yet still they served the smoking guns 

Of fearless battery B. 

Aye, love fore'er those soldiers brave, 

Who sleep beneath the sod ; 
Freely for us their lives they gave : 
4 None braver ever trod 

The smoke- wreathed field of grim-faced death, 

That flowed in crimson sea. 
Entwined with glory's greenest wreath 

Is the roll of battery B. 



Camp and Hearth. 125 

III.— THE EXCELSIOR BRIGADE. 



A brilliant mile of serried steel, 

Beneath the shining sun ; 
In line the gallant veterans wheel — 

The work of death's begun : 
A solid mile of silvery steel, 

A solid mile of blue : 
Ah ! many a Southern foe shall feel 

Their bullets quick and true. 

It is the gallant army corps, 

The gallant Sickles led, 
That in Virginia oft before 

For the starry banner bled : 
Now once again to the pealing sound 

Of bugles and of drums, 
They march on Pennsylvania ground, 

To fight for Northern homes. 

No grander sight was ever spread 

'Neath July's burning ray, 
Than the diamonded host, with martial tread, 

On its advancing way ; 
No ghastlier sight was ever seen 

On fields of carnage wild 
Than the smoking lines, and all between 

With bloody corses piled : 

For Longstreet's veteran legions charge 
In stern and swift array ; 



126 Camp and Hearth. 

0, never rolled so fierce, so large, 
The sweep of the serried gray ! 

And Hill's battalions tried and true 
Join in the lurid fray, 

And Barksdale carves, through lines of blue, 
The Mississippians' way. 

From Sherfy's orchard east and west 

The heated batteries play ; 
On Round Top's blood-besprinkled crest 

The fighting masses sway ; 
The Wheat-field is a pool of blood, 

Before the shut of day, 
Where Birney struggles, 'mid the flood, 

To hold the foe at bay : 

Along the line of Humphreys' fell 

The deadly leaden rain, 
With whiz of grape and shriek of shell, 

And sickening cries of pain. 
No heroes braver held their place 

'Mid the horrors of the fight ; 
And fronted death, face pressed to face, 

Till the veil of pitying night 

Had hid the field and the dead it bore, 

Than the soldiers brave and grand, 
Whose banners flapped "Excelsior," 

As the name of their command ; 
And none more bravely, grandly fought, 

'Mid that echoing fire of hell. 
With woe was the deadly answer fraught, 

They gave to the Southern yell. 



Camp and Hearth. 127 

Ah ! many a widow in her weeds 

Will sadly mourn for aye, 
The Excelsior boys and their valiant deeds 

On that fierce-fought battle-day. 
Though their flag be torn to a single shred, 

And shot from its resting place, 
And piled beneath it the mangled dead, 

It has never known disgrace. 

A shattered mile of blood-dimmed steel, 

Beneath the setting sun ; 
O'er wounded comrades now they kneel, 

The work of death is done. 
One half of all that gallant corps 

Of the diamond and the blue, 
With life or wounds, that dark field o'er, 

Have sealed devotion true. 

But as the thrilling cheers arise 

From those who yet remain, 
Re-echoed to the vaulting skies 

From the dreary battle-plain ; 
The thinned Excelsiors still maintain 

Their banner in its place, 
For, 'mid the deadliest leaden rain, 

It will never know disgrace. 



^ 

(^ 



128 Camp and Hearth. 

IV.— THE PENNSYLVANIA RESERVES AT 
ROUND TOR 



In extolling the bravery of John Burns, it has occasionally been 
intimated by persons not well informed, that he was the only resident 
of Gettysburg who fought in the battle at that place. Gettysburg 
and the county of which it forms a part had at all times their full 
quota of men in the Union armies. It so happened, however, that 
at the time of the battle of Gettysburg there was but one of their 
numerous companies that was on duty in the Army of the Potomac 
under Gen. Meade. This was company K of the First Reserves, 
originally recruited by the Hon. Edward McPherson. Several 
other Adams county companies, however, participated in the opera- 
tions of the Gettysburg campaign. 

The Pennsylvania Reserves, after a long and toilsome march, ar- 
rived on the battle-field on the afternoon of the second day at a 
most critical moment, when the Union forces on the left were com- 
pletely outnumbered and, after a most gallant struggle, were being 
forced back. The arrival of the Pennsylvania Reserves and, soon 
after, of the Sixth Corps, completely changed the situation, and 
saved the Unionists from utter route. Gen. Crawford's charge from 
Little Round Top was one of the most brilliant features of the battle. 
It was in this charge that Col. Fred Taylor of the "Bucktails" was 
killed. Company K was commanded at the time by Captain H. 
N. Minnigh. Many of its men were fighting in sight of their own 
homes, and were in many cases compelled to return to Virginia 
without visiting them or even seeing their loved ones. Sergeant 
Samuel A. Young, now of Panora, Iowa, in going into battle, 
crossed his father's farm ; yet did not see his mother at all, nor his 
father and sisters, except as they came to him on the sides of Round 
Top during a lull in the battle. There were many other similar 
cases. 

Bret Harte has told the thrilling story 
Of old John Burns, in rhyme ; 



Camp and Hearth. 129 

And woven round his name a glory 

Which shall endure through time. 
When you but start a ball a rolling, 

It gathers as it goes : 
The hero, at each new extolling, 

With brighter record glows. 

All right. But how about the masses, 

Who did their duty well ? 
Before my eye again there passes 

The screaming storm of shell, 
Where Texans held the rugged ridges ; 

And piles of fallen men, 
The rocks between, were ghastly bridges 

To the frowning Devil's Den. 

Still on the foe exultant presses 

O'er shattered lines — and then, 
That hour of Freedom's dire distresses, 

Came pouring in the glen, 
Adown the rock-piled heights dark-frowning, 

Stern ranks of dust-soiled blue ; 
On Keystone ground with victory crowning 

A record brave and true. 

Like tiger fierce, the land despoiling, 

When checked in its career, 
The hosts of Hood, in dread recoiling 

Before the rousing cheer, 
See in the path that Crawford's hewing 

Their bravest melt away ; 



130 Camp and Hearth. 

Whilst swift, the grand Reserves pursuing, 
Drive back the baffled gray. 

From off that chasmed mountain peering, 

You'd see a thousand farms ; 
On these were wives and children fearing 

The rolling din of arms : 
And husband, brother, son were fighting 

In sight of home's embraces — 
In stern and bloody letters writing 

The deeds that history traces. 

" All right," you say. " The land's redeeming 

Was worth still greater cost : 
From war's stern fMd, at length, came beaming 

A Union well nigh lost." 
Well : look again. 'Mid bayonets shining 

And Hazlett's heated guns, 
Are sister's, mother's hands entwining 

Their brothers and their sons. 

Sweet, hurried kisses ; brief caresses ; 

No time their homes to view : 
Then toward Virginia swiftly presses 

The moving mass in blue. 
Could you thus still love's quick pulsation ? 

" Ah ! no." Then praise them, too ; 
And give the meed of warm laudation 

To those who fought for you. 



Camp and Hearth. 131 

"WE SHALL BE HAPPY THEN." 



New Version. 



When women cease deceiving 
Us poor, confiding men, 

Their arts around us weaving, 
"We shall be happy then." 

With all their smiling bland, 
There's hardly one in ten, 

That cares the turn of her hand 
For us poor, loving men. 

With form and face bewitching 
They win our hearts and then, 

To some new conquest switching, 
They jilt the foolish men. 

How very few take warning ; 

For the wisest of the men, 
All past experience scorning, 

Will trust the girls again. 

There is no power so charming 
As lovely woman, when 

Our firm resolves disarming, 
She binds the captive men. 

The heroes and the sages, 

Renowned with tongue or pen, 



132 Camp and Hearth. 

Have been in all the ages 
Just like the mass of men; 

For when a woman's graces 
Is brought beneath their ken, 

Their hearts to winsome faces 
Are lost. The foolish men ! 

And yet despite our whining, 
If they should leave us, men, 

All intercourse declining, 
" We'd not be happy then." 



HIGHLAND MARY." 



'Twas in the autumn's gorgeous prime, when thistle- 
down was sailing 

O'er every plain, and there was heard no sound of woe 
or wailing; 

When noonday's gentle zephyr notes and peaceful 
evening breeze 

Were softly sighing requiems through autumn's pic- 
tured trees, 

That I was roaming o'er the glens and by the purling 
streams, 

That pour down Scotia's mountains wild, where misty 
memory teems : 

'Twas there in bowers that put to shame the fabled 
homes of fairy, 

That first I met with her I love — my own, my High- 
land Mary ; 

My own, my Highland Mary. 



Camp and Hearth. 133 

Her step was light as those who court a haughty mon- 
arch's grace, 

But no licentious stain was on her pure and sinless 
face; 

Her skin was white as driven snow or gentle daisy's 
bud., 

That blooms so calmly where the stream pours on its 
surging flood; 

Her eyes, that beamed with sweetest love, were em- 
blems not of time, 

But of the happier spheres above, a sinless, Eden 
clime ; 

Her form was lithe as those who come from realms 
of azure airy, 

0, 1 shall never see thy peer — my own, my Highland 
Mary ! 

My own, my Highland Mary. 

No gems barbaric of the East bedecked with tawdry 
glare, 

No tinge of shame was on those cheeks kissed by the 
mountain air : 

She passed along with gentle mien like sighing songs 
of spring, 

Or like the viewless, guardian train that benedictions 
bring ; 

Her raven tresses, unconfined, enclasped her bonie 
form, 

More pleasant than the radiant sun dispersing mount- 
ain storm, 



134 Camp and Hearth. 

More beauteous than the brightest orb that decks the 
heavens starry, 

And watches, with its eyes of love, my own, my High- 
land Mary, 

My own, my Highland Mary. 

She plighted there her love tome by Scotia's warbling 
brook, 

Within a fern-clad glen more fair than Ida's loveliest 
nook ; 

She dreamt that we, for aye, should live unscathed by 
grief or sigh, 

The visions of her future hopes danced in her beam- 
ing eye: 

She placed her soft and lilly hand confidingly in mine, 

And I, 0, Highland Mary, forevermore was thine ! 

Forgotten all my cares and woes, and all the past so 
dreary, 

Forgotten all but love's dear boon, my own, my High- 
land Mary, 

My own, my Highland Mary. 



Within a fair and gentle glen stands Scotia's greenest 

mound, 
And Scotia's brightest jewel lies beneath the turf-clad 

ground; 
She sleeps serenely midst the roar, when the ebon king 

of storm 
Has clouded heavens' lovely vault with drear, porten- 

teous form, 



Camp and Hearth. 135 

And when the smiling breeze of spring sweeps o'er the 

verdant plain : 
But, 0, my dearest Highland Mary, you'll come no 

more again ! 
You're gone before to greet me there in realms of azure 

airy; 
I know you'll watch for me to come, my own, my 

Highland Mary, 

My own, my Highland Mary. 

Pennsylvania College. 



THE GOSPEL. 



By India's holiest rivers 

The Brahmin hath broken his idols, 
Where the golden Ganges quivers 

In its. snowy-curtained cradles. 

The Parsee's fire is dying 

On its throne of dreamy ages ; 

And Persian lore is lying 

With unknown, unread pages. 

The wail of Brahma's minions 
Is borne o'er isle and ocean, 

Whilst, on its ceaseless pinions, 
The Gospel speeds its mission. 



136 Camp and Hearth. 

CRETE— 1867. 



The noble sons of noble sires, 

In Crete's saline morasses, 
Are flashing forth the same soul-fires, 

That held the northern passes, 
When the three hundred, known in story, 

Defied the Persian's lieges, 
And gained their land immortal glory, 

For all successive ages. 

May the Omniscient Ear above 

Soon hear their prayer and pleading, 
And victory crown the righteous cause 

Which cost so cruel bleeding : 
May every land and every nation, 

Beneath God's starry arches, 
Press on to Freedom's grandest. station 

In time's progressive marches. 



GARIBALDI— 1867. 



Close by the Tiber's pearly stream, 

The noblest Roman living 
Again has fought his cherished dream, 

A nation's life reviving. 
Again his blood has drenched the soil, 

Which thronging memories cherish; 
And naught accomplished by his toil — 

But though he yet may perish 



Camp and Hearth. 137 

Before he sees his own loved land 

One free, united nation, 
On History's page his name shall stand; 

Whilst endless admiration 
Shall crown the story of his wars, 

And chant his fame immortal 
Among the brightly-clustered stars 

Of Glory's green-wreathed portal. 



TO "NEH." 



When first I saw thee, gentle one, 
I owned thy conquering power; 

With sweeter solace shone the sun, 
E're since that happy hour ; 

With finer fragrance blooms the flower, 
Thy lithesome step has pressed ; 

A happier radiance fills the bower 
Where I my love confessed ; 

And kindlier visions fill the night, 
From darkness until morning, 

The beamings of thy spirit bright, 
All baser things adorning ; 

A holier calmness soothes the mind, 

Ignoble thoughts refining ; 
No other power so fast will bind, 

To virtue's paths inclining, 
9 



138 Camp and Hearth. 

As will the pure and sunny force 
Of those whose lives are given, 

To scatter radiance on our course, 
And make this earth a heaven. 

So sacred are the hours gone by, 

In memories of mine; 
That, when I breathe life's latest sigh, 

'Twill not be life's, but thine. 



THE FLOATING SOUL. 



'Twas a night in the chilling December : 

From the farmer's open door 
Poured out in the darkness and sleeting, 

Of the merry guests, a score. 
An evening of apples and kissing, 

Of forfeits and frolic and fun, 
Of quaffing the rarest of cider 

Ere the homeward march has begun. 

Three miles of woodland and meadow ! 

Three miles of darkness and sleet ! 
But my heart is the heart of the lightest, 

And more than willing my feet; 
For her arm is clasped ever so tightly, 

And her voice is music to me. 
So half the distance is finished — 

To the sombre, the cone-shedding tree— 

The tree that marks the beginning 



Camp and Hearth. 139 

Of the desolate swamp of the dead, 
Whence blood is said to ooze yearly, 

That ages before had been shed ; 
Where fires are said to dance brightly, 

Each night at the gloomiest hour, 
As that time when thirty Powhatans 

That fell in the Iroquois power, 

Were burned with the crudest tortures — 

Were burned, but uttered no groan, 
With stoical firmness enduring, 

As silent as pillars of stone. 
No wonder the country-folk shudder 

To pass, 'neath the. light of the sun, 
The desolate swamp of the dead, 

Where the deed of the demons was done : 

No wonder the bravest, at night-fall, 

Flee the sight of the sluggish morass. 
Tell your tales of goblins to cowards, 

For, this night, its confines I pass : 
Must I cringe at ihe gossip of women 

Handed down for two hundred years ? 
Shall I show to the girl that I love, 

Cheeks paled with dastardly fears ? — 

The girl Jim thought he had won — 

How the color flushes his face, 
When he sees us passing along, 

With her hand in this resting place ! 
" Happy ? " " Why, of course "— " What ?— A step ? 

Oh no ! for no one is near — 



140 Camp and Hearth. 

A shadow? — Can blackness be shaded? — 
'Tis the moan of the sleet that you hear." 

" 0, God, have " — 0, that terrible blow, 

That cleft through skull and through brain ! 
It came from a hand that was stalwart, 

From a heart that was burning with pain ; 
With pain of rejected affection, 

That had grown to the deadliest hate : 
And I knew now the legend of death 

Of the desolate swamp, when too late. 

•v!> vl^ v]> v|> v|> v!> 

O, the wild, uncertain fluttering 
Of the soul no accent uttering ! 
That cannot fall, that cannot rise ; 
That sees, in grim and wild surprise, 
The ghastly corpse that 'neath it lies ; 
That sees hot tears from loving eyes, 
As she, with wild and warm caresses, 
On rigid lips a kiss impresses, 
Beseeches for a look, a word, 
To show her tones of love are heard ; 
Sees, through the forest lone and drear, 
The murderer fleeing, mad with fear. 

O, the wild, uncertain fluttering 
Of the soul no accent uttering ! 
That sees the world beneath it dim ; 
That sees Herculean shadows grim, 
That flutter by in weird disguise, 



Camp and Heakth. 141 

Or gaze with looks of gaunt surprise. 

A mist above, beneath, around, 

That veils the stars and hides the ground ; 

The wood, the world have disappeared, 

While giant, phantom forms upreared, 

No welcome give, no look, no sign, 

By which the wanderer can divine 

Aught of the future. All is still. 

0, voiceless seers of shadowy ill ! 

Is there not one in all your band 

To reach, through clouds, a friendly hand. 

To lead to where some precious ray 

Shall herald but one glimpse of day ? 

0, the wild, uncertain fluttering 

Of the soul no accent uttering ! 

That cleaves, without apparent motion, 

A rayless night — an ethery ocean, 

Where shadowy shapes in form titanic, 

With gleaming eyes and breath volcanic, 

Are ever near. A stupor stealing 

Across the soul with horror reeling, 

It soon is lost to sight and feeling. 

It wakes to see a child-form kneeling ; 

Of face unknown, yet, bright and clear, 

Its sunny presence scatters fear; 

For gleams of light and day appear, 

That seem to radiate from the child : 

The phantom forms by night up-piled 

Have gone. " Poor, helpless wanderer, lone ; " 

It spoke in artless, tender tone, 



142 Camp and Hearth. 

"Your guide am I." Hand clasped in hand. 
The shadowy shapes of hate disband, 
While quick as thought the vision changed ; 
High, over meadows fair, we ranged, 
With babbling brooks and arbors bright, 
Resplendent with the self-same light, 
That beamed upon his tender face : 
From scene to scene, from place to place, 
Upward, still upward, was the flight, 
Past distant worlds that blazed with light — 
Past orbs that fitful glowed and burned — 
Where comets, constellations turned, 
Until the soul the lesson learned; 
*' A child shall lead." The simple trust, 
The sunny faith of childhood must 
Enter the heart and work its leaven, 
To ope the waiting gates of Heaven. 

« Where is the throne ; the temple, where ?" 

Ripples throughout the ambient air 

The answer of the guiding one : 

"With humble faith all good is won; 

The grandest throne of Heaven's King, 

The grandest sacrifice we bring, 

Is soul repentant, meek and mild, 

With pride and passion undefiled — 

Its emblem here, a little child. 

The temple's not in realms apart; 

Christ's throne is ever in my heart : 

And all, who bow before the throne, 

By faith and pra}^er, the prize have won 



Camp and Hearth. 143 

Of child-like heart; as Jesus taught, 
When little ones to him were brought ; 
And ages past, in Judean land, 
He took them up with tender hand, 
And blessings on the heads were given 
Of those who are the guides to Heaven." 



LOVED AND LOST. 



0, Love, whence are thy magic powers ? 
Let Erato, in flowery bowers, 
Relate thy deeds, whilst Cupid showers 
Upon the good and fair of ours 
Futurity of love. 

Let Venus chant beneath the vine, 
Whose gentle tendrils round her twine, 
And form a scenery divine — 
Her loved and sunny Paphian clime, 
With emerald skies above. 

In vain I from the Muses ask 
Power to assume fair Sappho's task; 
To tell why love all faults will mask, 
And lead rash men to blindly bask 
Beneath its tender rays. 

Yet I have felt the magic thrill, 
When in the evening calm and still, 
We wandered o'er the verdant hill, 
Or by the mazy, rippling rill, 

Well-known, oft-trodden ways. 



144 Camp and Hearth. 

Now sounds no more that gentle tone, 
That had each day more tender grown ; 
Hope's echo is a hollow moan, 
For I am wandering all alone, 

With heart of icy stone. 

Yet through the leaden clouds of night, 
Faith opens to the longing sight, 
A vision of the upward flight 
To sunnier worlds and purer light, 
Where lives the spirit, calm and bright, 
In Heaven's peaceful zone. 



1859. 



LULLABY OF THE FALLS. 



Through the lone and dreary forest, 
Through the wild and wintry forest, 
Through the moaning, snow-clad forest ; 
Over hills of pine and hickory, 
Over rocks and ice-decked thickets, 
Over valleys deep with snow-drifts, 
Over streamlets tightly frozen, 
With a laggard, heavy footstep, 
With a heart oppressed and weary, 
With an ever-gnawing hunger, 
Came an Indian warrior, sadly. 
All his tribe were gone or scattered ; 
Some in hopeless battle fallen, 
Near the sea, the great salt-water ; 
Some had wandered to the northward, 



Camp and Hearth. 145 

Whilst he followed up the wild deer, 
In a long and winding chasing, 
In a fruitless, mocking chasing ; 
And the cruel snow had covered 
All the traces of their pathway. 

All the trees seemed gaunt with hunger, 
All the stars seemed eyes of famine, 
All the clouds seemed evil tidings 
Of yet deeper, whirling snow-drifts, 
All the streams seemed boding prophets 
Of a death by slowest torture. 
Over hills of pine and hickory, 
Over hills of oak and cedar, 
O'er the mountains Nescopec, 
To the lonely, winding river, 
To the ice-bound, silent river, 
Where alone the falls were sounding, 
Where alone the falls were babbling, 
Where alone the falls were living ; 
For the breath of cruel winter 
Had no power to bind their music, 
Had no power to still their living, 
Though his fingers wound around them 
Ice in many wondrous circlets, 
Ice in great and grotesque pendants. 

Then the lone and famished warrior 
Gave his thanks to the Great Spirit 
For the babbling, dashing water, 
For the music of the water, 



146 Camp and Hearth. 

For the sound that seemed to tell him 
All the world had not been given 
To the boundless sway of silence : 
And he hailed it as a brother, 
Hailed the dashing, purling waters, 
Hailed the limpid, moving waters. 
Lo ! a deer came slowly downward 
From the mountains Nescopec ; 
Came toward the babbling water; 
Stooped to drink the icy water. 
Then with prayer to nerve his weakness, 
Then with prayer to speed his arrow, 
In his eye there shone a brightness, 
In his eye, deep-dimmed by famine ; 
And there came the old time cunning, 
And the sinews, worn with hunger, 
Felt the thrill of hope and power. 
Then the arrow glided swiftly, 
Then the arrow glided truly ; 
And the deer, convulsive bounding, 
Fell with head and antlers touching 
On the swift and moaning waters, 
With its blood the ice- wreaths dyeing: 
And the warrior's life was saved. 

Then he struck a fire with flint-stones ; 
Ate the venison provided 
By the hand of the Great Spirit, 
Ate and slept and felt renewed. 
Then with voice of sunny gladness, 
Then with words of deepest pathos, 



Camp and Hearth. 147 

Loud there echoed through the forest, 
Echoed through the pine and hickory. 
Through the oak and through the cedar, 
Rang above .the sound of music 
Floating from the dashing water, 
In an Indian tongue melodious, 
Blessings on the falling water: 
And the Indian's loud thanksgiving 
Was re-echoed from the mountains, 
From the silent, wintry mountains, 
From the mountains Nescopec, 
To the winding Susquehanna. 

"Blessings rest on thee, fair water; 
And, in all the after ages, 
May thy sound bring joy and gladness 
To the heart with sorrow aching, 
To the heart alone and dreary, 
To the hungry, fainting spirit; 
Till no more the shadows lengthen 
From the mountains Nescopec; 
Till no more the Susquehanna 
Winds between the pleasant hill-tops." 



For ages, the Indian had slept; 

Forgotten his name and his nation : 
For ages, the heart-sick have w r ept, 

Through all our social gradation : 
But the falls have sang on unceasing, 

In a metrical cadence and rhyme, 



148 Camp and Hearth. 

With a melody ever increasing 

With the lapse of the cycles of time. 

The worldling will pass all unheeding, 

Intent on his gold and his gain ; 
But the heart, that is wounded and bleeding. 

Will find a solace for pain 
In the mystical roar of the river : 

For the blessing pronounced on the day, 
When the shaft from the Indian's quiver 

Was sent on its whizzing way, 

Still linger above the bright waters, 

And chants in their lullaby strain : 
u Come, hearken, earth's sons and earth's daughters, 

To the song of our purling refrain." 
In the darkness and stillness of night 

Its music is loudest and deepest, 
When o'er hearts worn out with earth's fight, 

Despair, thou chillingly creepest. 



With a heart that was heavily clouded, 

I tossed on a sleepless bed ; 
For the future in darkness was shrouded, 

And ray less the sky overhead : 
Beneath me the water was plashing, 

As ever these thousand years ; 
And I read in its lullaby dashing 
The death of my ghastly fears : 

For the roar and the murmur incessant 
Was soothing to heart and to brain, 



Camp and Hearth. 149 

And lulled by the rhythm quiescent, 

Had vanished the dreams of pain : 
And the lullaby cadences ringing, 

Through the silent hours of the night, 
With their metrical plashing and singing, 

Put the ogres grim to flight : 

For in dreams, the rarest and sweetest, 

Came the seers of futurity's bliss ; 
And from lips, the warmest and neatest, 

Were impressed, on mine, a kiss: 
And a radiant presence, resplendent, 

Through the silent and antique room, 
A sunny and noiseless attendant, 

Dispersed all feelings of gloom. 

I beheld in visions imparted 

The years of the future rise, 
Where never a storm- wing darted 

O'er happy and cloudless skies : 
And with faith in the future's sweetness, 

With faith in that lullaby strain, 
On the morrow, with ardor and fleetness, 

I essayed earth's duties again. 

Baltimore, Md., September 25, 1887. 



?»^cCf^^>^s) 



•s^C^lgp^ 



150 Camp and Hearth. 

THE WIFE'S REPLY. 



"I brought to thee no lands or gold? " 

Alas ! your charge is true ; 
And yet I brought a wealth untold, 

That never miser knew. 

I brought to thee a virgin love, 

A sunny, sinless heart; 
I gave thee all I had to give, 

Graces untouched by art. 

I gave my life, my love to thee, 
Left home and cherished kin; 

Oh ! can you now return to me 
The heart you strove to win ? 

My head is flecked with rifts of gray, 
The glowing cheek has paled ; 

Adown but half life's weary way, 
The sunny smile has failed. 

The daily round of household cares, 

That added to your store ; 
The toil that mind and body wears, 

The children that I bore, 

Have stolen all the charms away 
Of youth's delightful spring ; 

And sent me toward life's closing day, 
While bitter taunts you fling, 



Camp and Hearth. 151 

That I to thee have brought no gold : 

Can gold return to me 
The priceless gift — the gift untold, 

I gave, all pure, to thee ? 



CONTEST OF AGES. 



How oft, alas ! on fields infernal, 

Dark with every passion, 
The friends of truth and right eternal 

Fail in their glorious mission. 

For sometime good, and sometime evil, 

Kule o'er this orb ascendant : 
In vain will croakers carp and cavil 

At ill with good attendant. 

Our God is sifting out each nation 

Beneath His grand ordeal; 
Both low and lofty, every station, 

Will have his post of trial. 

Lo ! light and darkness strangely blending ! 

Votaries side by side : 
Still, at the mighty contest's ending, 

The right will firm abide. 

18G7. 



152 Camp and Hearth. 

NEW YEAR'S SOLILOQUY. 



Yes, this is the time for mirth to be coursing, 

In wild, bounding gambols through city and town j 

Hilarity flows, all sorrow dispersing, 

Not heeding how darkly the future may frown. 

Oh! time, that ever, on swift-gliding pinions, 

Is hastening on to eternity's goal, 
Let him, that now views thy fleeting dominions, 

Act wisely and think of the undying soul : 

For myriads ere this brief year shall be ended, 
Shall suddenly droop in life's weary march ; 

Shall sleep, where the willow and cypress are blended, 
Beneath the green turf and the heavens' blue arch. 

The new year's bright visions are mingled with sorrow, 
For we think of her sisters that hailed us before ; 

We loved them — and slept — we woke on the morrow, 
To find they had passed to come — nevermore. 

1862. 



Gamp and Hearth. 153 

BALTIMORE. 



Sweet, storied city, bright and fair, 

By blue Patapsco's wave ; 
Whose daughters winsome graces wear, 

Whose sons are true and brave : 
Whilst floats our flag 'neath heavens' arch, 

And lives our nation grand, 
Still onward be thy happy march, 

And warm the welcoming hand, 
In Baltimore. 

Enrolled on brightest scrolls of fame, 

Thy heroes and thy sages 
Have linked with theirs thy fadeless name, 

Illustrious to the ages. 
God bless the land for Mary named, 

God bless its sons and daughters, 
God bless the city, fair and famed, 

Along Patapsco's waters — 
Loved Baltimore. 

And may thy generous founder, when 

His look is bent on thee, 
Established, like the land of Penn, 

Oppressed mankind to free, 
Forever see thy banner fly 

O'er prosperous, happy homes: 
Above, a peaceful, cloudless sky ; 

Beneath, the stately domes 

Of Baltimore. 
10 



154 Camp and Hearth. 

As ever, may those homes be filled 

By those, whose lovely faces 
With wild delight all hearts have thrilled : 

Whose thousand charming graces 
Have made thy name fore'er renowned 

For peerless women bright; 
With happiness may they be crowned, 

To shed refining light 

On Baltimore. 

Harrisburg, Pa., Xmas, 1885. 



A WREATH OF WISHES TWINED FOR 
MAME OF G . 



With sunny tones of gladness, 

With ringing, artless mirth, 
Forbidding shade of sadness, 

Would that there stood on earth 
A countless host as winning, 

With heart as free from guile ; 
Each day the fresh beginning 

Of a constant, cheery smile. 
Although so fond of teasing, 

A mischief-loving miss, 
Resentment quick appeasing, 

You throw a mocking kiss. 

May all your life, unclouded, 

Be redolent with joy ; 
No path with mist enshrouded ; 

Your bliss without alloy : 



Camp and Hearth. 155 

May still that sparkling brightness 

Beam ever from your eye ; 
Nor loose your step its lightness, 

When swiftly drawing nigh, 
Intent on errand teasing, 

A mischief-planning miss, 
Resentment quick appeasing. 

You give a tiny kiss. 

May all your friends be ever 

Loyal to right and you ; 
No cruel change dissever 

Your friendships warm and true : 
And when some heart that's beating 

Responsive to your own, 
With trembling words entreating, 

Shall make his love-tale known,, 
A moment cease your teasing, 

Sweet, mischief-loving miss, 
Anxiety appeasing, 

Bestow a loving kiss. 

October 1, 1887. 






156 Camp and Hearth. 

MARY GWENDOLEN CALDWELL. 



When Deborah judged the tribes beloved, 

And words of queenly justice spoke, 
Before her eyes a vision moved — 

Upon her prophet sight there broke, 
Along the centuries ascending, 

The women great in song or story, 
Who, with the nations' records blending, 

Have left a legacy of glory. 

With grief she views the galleys sailing 

Upon the Cydnus' ice-cold stream; 
Whilst to her prophet eye unveiling, 

Appears the end of the wild dream, 
When the Egyptian beauty, swaying 

All hearts and wishes to her own, 
Had hoped for prostrate world obeying, 

And died beneath her crumbling throne. 

More brightly comes the maid heroic 

Who 'neath the golden lillies fought, 
And, firmer far than Grecian stoic, 

'Mid flames a nation's safety bought. 
She sees in prophecies envisioned 

The bonie days of brave Queen Bess ; 
And one, who eighteen years imprisoned, 

With swan-white neck the block did press. 

With kindlier eye in visions glowing, 
She sees the women lone and few, 



Camp and Hearth. 157 

Adown their cheeks the tear-drops flowing, 

In peril to the Master true : 
And Dorcas shines in rays resplendent, 

More brilliant far than Egypt's queen ; 
Whilst, through eternity attendant, 

The orphans' prayer glows ever green. 

And still with mighty cycles blending, 

Gleam other names to bless mankind ; 
A lovely galaxy unending, 

The pure, the polished, the refined, 
Who gave their lives, their all, to chasten 

The world with sin and sorrow reeking ; 
The reign of love and light to hasten, 

For which the ages have been seeking. 

The Jewess sees the centuries showing 

The name of Florence Nightingale ; 
And sees Columbia's records glowing 

With those, who pressed, where iron hail 
Of battle swept with cruel bleeding, 

To grandly work their deeds of love — 
To heal the sick, the dying leading 

To hope for fairer realms above. 

And bright among the names immortal, 

Whose impress crowns for good all time; 
And gleams from earth to Heaven's portal, 

With lofty purposes sublime, 
Is niche entwined with greenest wreathing, 

For one with beauty, wealth and station, 
Whose consecrated hope found breathing 

In noble, lofty aspiration. 



158 Camp and Hearth. 

As long as learning is revered, 

And votaries crowd to Science' fane, 
The monument that she has reared, 

Bright and enduring shall remain — 
Shall live, when brass and marble crumbling 

No lineage give of prince or king. 
Past regal domes in ruins tumbling, 

Those halls shall with her triumphs ring. 

October 10, 1887. 



A HOME PICTURE. 



Without, a keen and frosty air ; 

Within, a fireside bright; 
And children gaily gathered there, 

Their faces sweet with delight : 
A darkling maid with nut-brown curls, 

And one with golden hair, 
Two stalwart boys, two little girls, 

And a mother frail and fair. 

The handsome maid with flowing curls 

Sang forth in joyous glee, 
From ruby lips its trills and purls : 

" 0, happy, so happy, are we ; 
For father will come again to-day 

From lands beyond the sea, 
With joy our bounding hearts are gay ; 

He's kind as kind can be." 



Camp and Hearth. 159 

And sang the maid with golden hair 

In musical refrain, 
And these the words and this the air 

Of the sweetly-carolled strain ; 
"A happy band we'll be to-night, 

For, kept by faith and prayer 
And walking in the paths of right, 

We'll feel a father's care." 

The father came ; sweet joy was there, 

And thanks to Heaven's King. 
From happy hearts on the frosty air 

Their merry voices ring ; 
And each one blessed the welcome day, 

When, to their answered prayer, 
Together they could tread life's way 

Beneath a father's care. 

Yet are there homes that do not shine 

With smiles of pleasant faces ; 
Around their hearth-stones do not twine 

The sweet and heavenly graces. 
Not all the boundless stores of gold 

Supply love's warm embraces ; 
Nor wealth, in haughty bosoms cold, 

A friendly feeling places. 

To other scenes at length we roam, 

'Mid diamonds pure and white ; 
A gorgeous, costly city home, 

Flooded with streams of light: 



160 Camp and Hearth. 

The garish gleam, the festive dance 
Resound throughout the night, 

And gallants watch each glowing glance 
Of dark eyes flashing bright. 

And yet, may be, this scene of mirth 

Hides breaking hearts within ; 
Nor all the jeweled stones of earth 

Can shield from woe and sin: 
Sweeter the precious wealth untold, 

The love of home and kin, 
Than all the joys that boundless gold 

For human hearts can win. 

Y— 1872. 



RESURGEMUS. 



So, suffering Annie, you are aweary 

Of life and its endless toil, 
And long to rest in the quiet breast 

Of Greenwood's hallowed soil, 
As pass the dark hours dreary. 

Yet, lend your ear and your heart to-night 

As I gaze beyond the portal ; 
For the spirit's trance may catch a glance 

Of the spirit's life immortal, 
Where the bloom turns not to blight. 

True, life's endeavor is ceaseless pain : 
Some hearts were made for breaking ; 



Camp and Hearth. 161 

And yet I trow, we know not how, 
Each true heart, bliss partaking, 
As sun-beams after the rain, 

Shall sweetly breathe in a purer sphere, 

Where love envelopes duty : 
The pain of life — the poisoned strife, 

Shall culminate in beauty, 
Through discipline severe. 

1868. 



DOLLIE HARRIS, OF GREENCASTLE. 



Founded on the incident brought to light by Col. Aylett, of Pickett's 
division, at the Pickett- Philadelphia reunion of July, i88j. 



To the younger generation, the attempt in the opening stanzas to 
describe the terrorized condition of "the border," during the nu- 
merous actual or rumored raids and invasions of the war, will con- 
vey little meaning. Those who themselves saw the wild, headlong 
flight of thousands whenever the terrific news, "The Rebels are 
coming," was heralded, know that no description in words can do 
it justice. 

For twenty days the ranks in gray 

Had surged past town and farm : 
Lee was upon his northward way. 

With hot and wild alarm, 
Across the Susquehanna pressed, 

In endless caravan, 
Those who, with eyes devoid of rest, 

From shadowing terrors ran : 



162 Camp and Hearth. 

The breathless farmer with his stock, 

In dust-enveloped ranks ; 
The hapless u contrabands " who flock 

To seek its Pisgah banks ; 
The merchant in tumultous haste 

To save what wealth he can : 
With fancies wild of a land laid waste, 

Clan rushes after clan. 

The sweetest valley 'neath the sun 

Is rent with war's alarms, 
As from the fields already won, 

The gleaming Southern arms 
Press on in solid miles of steel : 

Then flows from gate to gate, 
From town to town, the trembling peal 

Of mingled fear and hate. 

At length battalions all controlled 

By one great master mind, 
Swift toward one common hub are rolled, 

The foe in blue to find ; 
And last of all the grand array, 

With steady martial tread, 
Five thousand veterans clad in gray, 

With Pickett at their head. 

For hours they poured in mass along ; 

No coward men are they, 
That soon, 'mid shrapnel's shrieking song, 

Shall join the ensanguined fray; 



Camp and Hearth. 163 

Along the quiet village streets 

They came. Without command, 
Aghast at what their vision greets, 

One impulse checked the band: 

A sunny girl before their eyes, 

With artless face and air ; 
But who can tell their deep surprise, 

To see her standing there, 
Kadiant from feet to snowy neck 

With bright Columbia's stars : 
Nor did she rows of bayonets reck 

That gleamed beneath the bars. 

Aye, proudly, bravely stood she there, 

Among the mighty throng : 
" God bless her," was the muttered prayer 

Of many a soldier strong, 
Whose moistened eye bespoke the love, 

Still in his heart concealed, 
For the flag which floats our land above, 

Which that moment had revealed. 

With one accord Virginia's sons, 

Whose valor oft had flamed 
'Mid bursting shells and heated guns, 

In thrilling words, exclaimed : 
" Three hearty cheers the fearless maid 

Has won by bravery ; 
The flag in which she is arrayed 

We'll greet with three times three," 



164 Camp and Hearth. 

One flag now waves o'er all our land ; 

No shock of war's alarms, 
Nor hostile raid, nor flaming brand, 

Nor frantic call to arms, 
Disturbs this peaceful valley fair, 

With heaven's bounty blessed : 
From former foeman comes the prayer, 

With fervent lips expressed, 

" God bless the maiden fair and sweet ; 

Let still the flag of love, 
When oft in unison we meet, 

Soar blue and gray above ; 
Be cursed for aye the heart or hand 

That mars its stars or fame, 
Whilst rings forever through the land 

Brave Dolly Harris' name." 



A MEMORY. 



To A. 



E'en visions of sin have a moral within, 
Not alone man's merciless master ; 

And lessons of love are gained above 
From what had seemed disaster. 

Thus again and again, in the mingled refrain 
Of love, and crime and devotion, 

The woes of the past are leading at last 
To life's omniscient elation : 



Camp and Hearth. 165 

For bright and clear as the morning star 
That dawns on a world benighted, 

O'er conquered fears and vanished tears 
Shine the lamps by Heaven lighted. 

In the morning of life, ere the darkening strife, 

Ere the world proved all untrue, 
Stands an arbor green and the brilliant sheen 

Of the love I had for you : 

A love so wild, as an untamed child, 

Its wealth was given to thee, 
'Neath the dark-green leaves of the walnut groves, 

Where you often roamed with me. 

1868. 



FACES WE MEET. 



In the wildering whirl of the throngs that we meet, 
In the roar and the roll and the tramp of the street, 
There are fates that are marching to join us abreast, 
There are demons and ghouls that will murder our rest ; 

There are angels whose friendships will furnish a balm 
And diffuse through the future # a mystical calm : 
They are pressing and crowding and thronging the 

street, 
And they glower or they smile in the faces we meet. 

There are faces that glide 'neath the lamp-light with 
pain 



166 Camp and Hearth. 

And with sorrow and misery forming their train ; 
There are faces with eyes w T hose wild glances of crime 
Will o'ershadow some souls to the nethermost time. 

Then sweet faces come trooping in merriment by, 
For a moment bright visions, then lost to the eye; 
But may be there is one in the swift-passing throng 
That, the future revealed, as she hurries along, 

Would unfold grand reflections of glorified good. 
There's a face whose dark scowls but one moment in- 
trude, 
Yet for years will it haunt like a grim revelation 
Of a fiend that's seeking a pure soul's damnation. 

There are faces we pass that will come nevermore — 
That are plunging from sight to the Lethean shore — 
To whose pleading, one word of kindness, unspoken, 
Would have saved from destruction a heart that was 
broken. 

With contentment and pleasure in heart and in mind, 
Whilst we joyously greet in fair faces refined 
Their answering smile of contentment and joy, 
As we walk on the street, we feel no annoy ; 

Yet gaunt faces have fastened a riveting gaze 

That shall go with our steps to the end of our days : 

There are faces accusing, at judgment to meet, 

That we casually passed in the throngs of the street. 



Camp and Hearth. 167 

OVER THE BREAKERS. 



Lone voyager on life's ocean, 

When the waves are rolling high, 
When storms are fierce and wild blasts pierce, 

With never a star in the sky ; 
No sign of a saving life-boat 

To bring out cheering relief, 
And now you feel the good ship's keel 

Grate harsh on the rocky reef, 

In that hour of fear and dread, 

Look up through the sullen sky, 
Till comes a ray of cheering day 

From the throne to your wearied eye : 
Then that star, that brightly shines 

O'er the clouds of ebon hue, 
Shall safely guide o'er the troubled tide 

To a port prepared for you. 



TO S. C. K., OF NEWBURYPORT, MASS- 



The muse that on Parnassus dwells, 
Or roams through Tempe's classic dells, 
No more breathes forth in words of fire 
To thrill with euphony the lyre ; 
But, weeping sad on Grecian shore, 
Mourns for the buried brave of yore — 
A valiant, glory-mantled throng, 



168 Camp and Hearth. 

That live but in the poet's song. 
And yet, some power with life inspires 
The kindling heart that still desires 
To soar on wings of song and fame, 
And carve the future with her name. 
Sweet poetess, from realms of thought 
Have you to listening mortals brought 
Such wealth of verses, pure and sweet, 
That I would ever at thy feet 
List to their soft and rhythmic flow, 
So rich in fancy's beauteous glow. 
Pass thou as calmly o'er life's maze, 
And o'er time's sunny, shady ways, 
As does the bird of noblest song 
Whose swelling choruses prolong 
In evening's hour the notes of heaven, 
Sweet symphonies to mortals given. 



ENCOURAGEMENT. 



Press back your thronging fears, 
That labor for the right, 

That are the pioneers 
Of freedom and of light. 

Yours is a noble task ; 

To know your sure reward, 
The stainless pages ask 

Of God's eternal word. 



Camp and Hearth. 169 

Though some may vainly seek 

To pass their halcyon days, 
Where flowers with poison reek, 

'Mid error's devious ways ; 

Yet soon each rose shall give 

The piercing of the thorn ; 
From every sin shall live 

A soul-pang freshly born. 

Then forward urge your way, 

Ye, champions of the right ; 
Assured that God's bright day 

Will banish shades of night. 



TWO LETTERS FROM SARATOGA. 



0, Jennie, such a conquest grand ! 

I've made a daisy mash : 
He's offered me his heart and hand. 

0, won't I cut a dash ! 
He has such black and glossy hair, 

A love of a mustache, 
A quite distinguished, noble air ; 

And he has loads of cash. 

0, won't the girls all envy me 

Upon my wedding day ! 
I hope they'll all be there to see, 

That none will keep away : 
Triumphant glances will I give 
11 



170 Camp and Hearth. 

My former rival, May : 
Let her with her mechanic live ; 
I'll lead a life more gay. 

" Who is he?" yes; I'll tell you, dear. 

A man of noble station ; 
A duke at least, 'tis very clear; 

I never asked his nation, 
For, when his manly form is near, 

My heart swells with elation 
His glowing words of love to hear, 

In tones of adoration. 



We leave this horrid place to-night, 

My eyes are red with crying, 
I'm looking worse than any fright; 

There's no use now of trying 
To keep my wretched secret tight 

From gossips' eager prying : 
They laugh at me, full in my sight : 

For solitude I'm dying. 

" What's wrong?" All's wrong. That horrid man- 

(I'd like to spoil his eyes:) 
I'll pay him if I ever can — 

A forger in disguise. 
To think how he has roped me in 

With his transparent lies ; 
And fooled me with pretences thin, 

With love-talk and with sighs. 

0, this will be a morsel sweet 
For all the girls and May : 



Camp and Hearth. 171 

I'll be ashamed to walk the street, 

Or face the light of day. 
Yes, Saratoga is a town, 

Where life is brisk and gay ; 
But when your plans have all smashed down, 

You'd better get away. 



AT THE PINES. 



To a Young Friend. 



Soft sunlight straggling through the green, 

One pleasant autumn day ; 
Dark flash the fitful shades between, 

Past sombre trunks of gray ; 
Beyond the hillside, meadows lie 

In sweet and silent rest, 
Hemmed round by oaks of gorgeous dye 

By fairy hands impressed. 

But where rears high the solemn pine 

Its cone-producing head, 
By memories forced, my steps incline 

The needled path to tread : 
A wanderer long from boyhood's skies, 

What recollections start ! 
And through the overbrimming eyes 

Wells up the heaving heart. 

For forty years have passed away 

Since, 'neath this grateful shade, 
I idled childhood's sunny day. 



172 Camp and Hearth. 

Of those who with me played, 
Some sleep in graves by Glory kept 

Forever green and bright, 
And some for weary years have wept 

Fond hopes eclipsed in night. 

Of all who from the precious years 

Come thronging back to view, 
How many lived lives dimmed with tears ! 

Then let me breathe for you, 
Just starting on life's merry march, 

The prayer by friendship framed, 
That love thy path may overarch, 

By all thy praise proclaimed. 

Beneath these pines, through toiling terms, 

I scanned the classic page ; 
And here imbibed the generous germs, 

Which in maturer age, 
Impelled me, midst the clash of arms, 

To face the cannon's wrath : 
Here learned the sweet and fadeless charms 

Of science' cloud-capped path. 

May you some inspiration breathe, 

The arching pines within, 
Which shall around your pathway wreathe, 

Amid time's change and din, 
Fair garlands wrought by Hope and Love ; 

And may your future be, 
Unclouded skies your head above, 

From every sorrow free. 

October 15, 1887. 



Camp and Hearth. 173 

A MENTAL PANORAMA. 



Amid the garish, flaming light, 

That flares from'city streets at night, 

Come thoughts of childhood calm and bright. 

A child in all save sins and years, 

Through troubled sighs and bitter tears, 

'Mid hopes thick riven through with fears, 

I stand beside life's opening way, 

One sweet and balmy summer day ; 

I see the homely cottage red, 

Above, the blue with fleece o'erspread, 

Around, the thickly clustering trees 

Just moving to the faintest breeze ; 

Down sharp decline a pathway leads, 

Thick hedged around with clumps of weeds, 

To spring, that gushing from the earth 

In tiny stream, with babbling mirth 

Leaps rocky ledges two feet high, 

Niagara to my infant eye. 

Beyond this narrow, haw-decked dell, 

In broad expanse the ridges swell ; 

Part bleak, with gutters furrowed through, 

Part clad in ripple ribbed with blue, 

Part matted o'er with sour-grass knots, 

Uneven spread in clustering spots ; 

And then the dark, luxuriant mass 

Of pines, through which could scarcely pass 

The rabbit, driven from his lair 

Formed in the .knotted grass with care. 



174 Camp and Hearth. 

O, glorious thicket, ever green ! 
Upon thy carpet, dense between 
The knotted trunks, was never seen 
The brightness of the sun-light's sheen ; 
Upon that needled carpet dank, . 
With gambols gay and childlike prank, 
In innocence was whiled away 
The sweetness of each fleeting day, 
With one who, by Pacific's wave, 
To God her glorious life-work gave ; 
With some who stand on Zion's wall ; 
And some who, at their country's call, 
Met death to save our nation grand ; 
And some of sunny childhood's band, 
Who sported there each joyous spring 
In childish glee, whose laughters ring 
Through memory's echoing chambers still, 
Have tasted every shape of ill ; 
And some, with rudder lost and guide, 
From good have wandered far and wide, 
Foul wrecks on error's seething tide. 
Ah me! can anyone save God, 
On child-brows gazing, life untrod, 
Say which shall darkly curse the day 
They started on the downward way — 
Say which, with love their lives entwined, 
Shall shine in blessings on mankind ? 
Beyond the pines, a hillside brown ; 
Gigantic oaks its ridges crown ; 
Some spread in rich luxuriance still 
Their arms across the rock-ribbed hill, 



Camp and Hearth. 175 

While some, all hollowed at the core, 

Pulsate death-throbs from every pore : 

Adown the ridges, walnut trees 

Are mingled with the hickories. 

From out a crest of rugged rock, 

Dark-hued junipers keenly mock 

The eager gaze of childhood's eyes, 

Intent to gain the luscious prize. 

Along the borders of the field, 

In part in deep-cut shale concealed, 

Then swelling up on yonder hills, 

The dusty pike. 0, deeply thrills 

The wondering wish that childhood fills, 

Far down its winding miles to pass, 

Where cooling pool and meadow grass, 

The quiet of a country life, 

Is lost in streets with traffic rife ; 

Where is the ceaseless ebb and flow 

Of good and greed, of love, of woe ; 

Where ships forever sail away 

Adown the broad, pellucid bay, 

To bring from every clime and shore 

Their tribute stores to Baltimore. 

To close, far off, the distant view, 

In strong relief, 'gainst sky of blue, 

Upon its lonely hill- top perch, 

Stands out the white and rustic church, 

Which, through its hundred moss-grown years 

Of cycling human hopes and fears, 

Has looked on mingled joys and tears. 



176 Camp and Hearth. 

THE LAST GRAND ARMY MAN. 



The brilliant sun had risen bright athwart 

The domes and colonades of Washington. 

In peerless grandeur lay, beneath its beams, 

The mighty, bustling arteries of life ; 

And thronged those avenues a mass of men 

And woman, old and young. And childhood, too, 

Was there with artless grace and harids that held 

Fair gifts of spring-time's sweetest, fragrant flowers. 

Nor there alone were throngs and dense-packed men. 

One hundred millions, all the land across, 

Were bringing votive offerings to deck 

Graves, that, by time with matted sod thick-clad, 

Were ever green : hallowed by memories grand, 

And wet each May-time with a nation's tears. 

But at the capitol, in honored seat, 

Sat one. That one, with reverent awe beheld, 

Took precedence of ermined judge. All eyes 

Forsook the nation's President to gaze 

Upon the feeble, age-wrecked veteran — 

The one alone yet spared by cruel time 

To link the living with the quiet mounds 

Of Arlington. 

And grander in the eyes 
Of thankful multitudes, those hoary locks, 
That time-bent, pain-racked frame than all the domes, 
Resplendent with the stars and stripes, 
That reared, in massive grandeur, monuments 
Of might resistless in the land that he 
Had loved — had saved. 

Harrisburg, Pa., October 22, 1887. 



